A/N: Ugh. Why is it Monday again?

Quick note about all my other stories. I haven't forgotten about any of them. I seem to have a head cold, and it makes it difficult to think. I'm going to try to get back on track this week! Trouble, Oblivious, and then either Fly Away Home or Long Distance are my goals for the week...but Nightmare is also burning a hole in my brain, so we'll see how that goes.

Now. Let's see what answers we get out of this chapter. Or will there be more questions? Let's see.

Stanford

"You are pathetic, Cullen."

Edward looked up from his laptop, surprised to find his friend in front of him. None of his friends were in the library this early in the semester. "What are you doing here, Tanya?"

She snickered. "You don't even know what time it is, do you?"

Irritated, Edward glanced at the lower right of his laptop and then he balked. "Oh, hell. I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was so late. I stood you up for dinner. Why didn't you call me?"

"When you didn't show up after twenty minutes, I had a pretty good idea where you were."
She reached across the table and unearthed his cell from the paperwork scattered all around. "You always put your phone on silent when you're in the library."

"You calling me predictable, Ivanova?" He snatched the cell back.

"Easy. I'm calling you easy."

"Ha, I can't possibly be that easy."

"Good point." She tilted her head and waggled her eyebrows at him. "We could go bar hopping instead of dinner. I'm a great wingman. I'll get you laid, no problem."

"I don't know where my fake ID is."

"I know the clubs that don't care."

"Tanya-"

"I know, I know." She laughed, shaking her head. "You're not here to get laid. Except that's an especially stupid thing to say considering one, it's summertime and two, you're not even signed up for a summer session class. What the hell are you doing in the library, for chrissakes?"

"Doing research for that scholarship I'm applying for, remember?"

"No. I don't remember, because I zone out when you're talking about boring things." She plopped down in the seat beside him. "Never going to understand you. It's not like your parents can't pay for your education. But no, you have to make it on your own, and drive yourself up the wall in the process."

Edward huffed. "Right. Because I'm the one that bought my car, pays for housing, and I fly myself across the country to see them." He shook his head, dismissing the rest of her argument. "I'd like to do as much as I can for myself. It's important to me."

"Okay, okay. I get it. No pussy. It's just a shame, that's all."

"What do you care? Isn't that more for you?"

"Contrary to popular belief, straight girls don't experiment in college. Or if they do, it's with another straight girl." Tanya craned her head to grin at him. "Though, I don't know. The kind of girl who would fuck a boy as pretty as you might be thinking of swinging my way."

Edward made a face at her and looked back to his work.

Tanya ruffled his hair. "You know it's true. But maybe I should shut up. It's to my benefit for you to keep your dick in your pants."

"Why's that?"

"Because some day, when I give in to the urge to pop a kid out, I'm going to ask you for a donation."

Edward's head snapped up. "What?"

Tanya cackled. "Oh my god. The look on your face is amazing. Can you blame me? Jesus, have you looked in a mirror? We'd make beautiful kids. Kids that would give the Jolie-Pitt kids a run for their money."

"How nice of you to inform me about the plans you're making for our future."

"Eh, it's a thought. Anyway, the point is, the fewer bastards you make, the better. I wouldn't want my kids to be jealous."

"Couldn't have that," Edward muttered, getting distracted by an article that had caught his eye. He sent it to the printer and got up to get it.

"Oh my god. I'm right here in front of you, and you still can't stop working."

"I'm almost done," Edward said, sitting down again. "For tonight anyway."

Tanya sighed in an overly dramatic way. "You're going to wake up one day, and all that glorious hair is going to be stark white."

Edward mumbled something unintelligible, really distracted now.

"Fine. Call me when you're ready to stop for a meal, you anti-social asshole."

"Ten minutes. I'll be right there."

"Sure you will."

When Edward glanced at the clock again, he could have sworn only twenty minutes had gone by. As it turned out, he'd been engrossed for over an hour. He rubbed his eyes, deciding maybe it was time for a break and to see if Tanya still wanted to be friends with him. He gathered all his things, stacking his printed out articles in groups relevant to the different parts of his argument. Organization was key.

He headed out of the library, down the steps, deep in thought, and only barely caught a glimpse of someone else, someone directly in front of him, stooping. He couldn't stop himself in time, and ended up toppling head over heels in a storm of papers, books, and his laptop bag.

"Ow. Shit," someone-a girl-said.

Edward glanced at her, saw that she was upright and conscious, and scurried on his hands and knees down the steps to where his bag had landed. "Shit, shit, shit," he said through clenched teeth, opening the bag to check on the contents-his precious laptop. Once he'd established it was in one piece, he turned to the girl and all his print outs. "What the heck is wrong with you?"

The girl, who had been gathering papers, looked up at him. Her eyes at first were wide and hurt, but only for a split second. Then, they narrowed. "What's wrong with me?"

Edward yanked the papers out of her hands and started gathering them into a neater pile. "Couldn't you attempt to watch where you walk?"

"Why, because you were watching where you were going? I don't know if you noticed, but you tripped over me, which means you were walking into me as much as I was walking into you."

He frowned, realizing her logic held up but was too angry to care. "And you bent down in the middle of the steps for what? If I was looking forward, I wouldn't have seen you anyway. It's like you were trying to get in people's way."

"There's no one else out here," she said, gesturing around them. "I was stopping to tie my shoe, if you have to know."

"Great." Edward made a disgruntled noise, frustrated as he tried to remember which articles went together. "Everything is a mess. These were organized. This is going to set me back. I'll have to reorganize everything before I can get to work."

She chuffed and muttered something under her breath.

"What?" he demanded.

She looked at him as though she was going to brush it off, but then changed her mind. "I said it must be nice to have such first world problems."

"What?" he asked again, furrowing his brow in confusion.

"Nothing." She handed him another stack of articles.

"No. Tell me what you meant."

She sat back on the step and rubbed her leg. She had a bruise, he noted. Not from him-it was way too early for any bruises to show. "I'm sorry. It's just, I was at a shelter this morning."

Edward balked. "Are you homeless?"

Her eyes went wide and she ducked her head. "No. No. I meant... I meant I was working at the shelter this morning. Volunteering. I volunteer there. Sometimes."

"Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. "Yeah, that makes more sense."

She looked away. "Look, whatever. Sorry. It's just that you're stressed out about paper. I get it. This sh-stuff is in some kind of order, and it probably took a long time to put it all together. Just…"

"It's an annoyance, not a problem." Edward pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. When he looked up at her again, he offered a smile. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I wasn't thinking. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"I'm sorry," he said again. He offered his hand to to help her up, and when she reached for him, she raised her head. He was struck by how pretty her eyes were-bright even in the dim light of the encroaching evening. He cleared his throat. "I was really rude. Can I… Have you had dinner yet?"

Her eyebrows shot up, and a smile quirked her lips. "You want to take me to dinner?

"As an apology. For the rudeness. It seems like the least I could do."

She looked dubious but not upset. "I don't even know your name."

"And I don't know yours. I'm Edward Cullen." He noticed then that he hadn't let go of her hand. He squeezed it and released her.

"Bella. Bella Higginbotham."

"Wow. That's a mouthful. Not Bella, but…" He coughed into his hand. "Anyway. Do you go here?"

"I...yeah. Yes."

"So dinner?" Tanya was going to kill him. Or high five him. One of the two.

The girl was very, very pretty. Beautiful.

Bella smiled. "Okay. Yeah."

~Seattle, Wednesday Night~

Edward stared at the Washington state ID that was the only photo Emmett and Jasper had of their daughter's biological mother. He set it down on the coffee table and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, breathing deeply. "If this is Katie's mother, then there's no way I'm her father."

Emmett, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face, scoffed. "Are you sure you remember every fuck you had?"

His nerves were fried, and Edward couldn't stop himself from glaring at his student's father. "You want it bluntly? There was exactly one woman. One woman in a three year period." He picked up the ID again. "And she wasn't Sasha Chernova, thirty years old, blond hair, blue eyes, five foot eleven inches, one hundred and thirty-five pounds." He threw the ID down. "I told you. I was in California. This is a homeless woman from Washington. I hadn't even been to Washington when Katie was born."

Beside him, Alice rubbed his back. "He's not lying. I know my brother. He's not exactly a social butterfly."

Jasper, hand to his chin, began to pace. "We don't know that much. She was found on the street. No family. No...nothing except a few possessions. The police might not have bothered to do the bloodwork to find out if the baby was even hers. They might have just assumed."

Edward let out a long groan and slammed his head back on the couch. "Why are you so insistent on sticking with this insane theory? Occam's Razor, right? The simplest answer is the truth. Your story is the one getting the most convoluted. I'm not her father. Shouldn't that be what you want?"

"Of course that's what I want." As before, it was clear in Jasper's eyes that he was a million times more lethal than his husband. "I wish a lot of things, Mr. Cullen, not the least of which is that Emmett had used his head for once instead of rushing out here to confront you. We could have used the time to figure things out for ourselves. But he didn't, and now we have a mystery on our hands. I'm sure of exactly two things. The first thing is that someday, we owe it to Katie to tell her the truth, the whole truth, about everything we know about where she came from. How she got to us. The second thing I know without a doubt is that the test is right. That's the part that would be too big of a coincidence. There were too many markers for the test to be incorrect. At the very least, you're intimately related. The simple answer is that you're her father."

Edward's pulse was becoming thready again, so he didn't try to say anything. He didn't know what he could have said.

Jasper blew out a sharp breath. "If you want me to do the test again, or do a blood test, I will. It would make me feel better too. You can watch me do it."

Edward's stomach churned, and his mouth went dry. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

~Olympia, One Week Later~

The TV was on, but Bella wasn't watching it. She was laying on the couch, wrapped up in blankets and her robe, still thinking about last weekend.

She'd let Siobhan and some of her other work friends drag her out to the club Friday night. It was nice. And tedious. And fun. And trying. Just like most social interactions in her life. She had to learn bit by bit how to become a normal person, and it was tiring.

The difference Friday night had been the surprise admirer. Jacob Black from the sales department. She'd never looked twice at him before last night, and had no idea he harbored any thoughts at all about her. But as they drank and ate, he started leaning in more. He laughed at her jokes. He made her laugh. And then his lips had been at her ear, the rumble of it sending chills down her spine.

"Do you want to dance?"

She had to be convinced, but she'd done it-damn peer pressure-and it hadn't been bad.

It was Wednesday now, and Jacob had made a point of stopping by her desk four times so far that week. She was far from naive, and she knew where his mild flirtation was headed. She was going to have to face the inevitable question sooner than later.

Was she ready to date? And if so, would it be Jacob? She didn't know how she felt about Jacob, and she didn't know that she wanted to find out.

The doorbell rang, shoving Bella back into the present. She grumbled and pulled the blanket over her head. Who the hell could that be? It was seven o'clock at night. Bella had changed into her jammies almost immediately after work, and it had been a long day. She was in neither a state nor a mood to talk to anyone.

Whoever was outside knocked again.

What the fuck? Rude.

"I can hear your television."

Bella froze. That was...unique. Maybe it was a crabby neighbor come to yell at her. She didn't think her TV was too loud, but neighbors could be assholes. She'd heard that before. That wasn't a conversation she wanted to have.

The knocker knocked again. Much harder. "Please."

Sitting up, Bella reached for her purse. Staring at the door as though the asshole outside was going to burst through like the damn Hulk, she fished out the mace she kept there and slipped it into the pocket of her robe.

He knocked again, making her jump. Insistent fucker.

One hand on the mace in her pocket, Bella went to the door. She opened it a fraction of an inch, peered out...and then she stumbled backward several steps, the mace dropping to the floor. She backed up until her back hit the wall.

The knocker pushed the door open, gently, not moving from the front stoop. He stared.

She stared back for thirty of the longest seconds in human history. Then, she closed her eyes as tightly as she could and pressed her hands on either side of her head.

This wasn't happening. There was no way in hell this could be happening. She scrambled for anchors to reality. Was it possible she'd lost it again? That had to be it.

"Bella?"

His voice was raw, filled with emotion, and it was real. It had to be real.

Slowly, Bella opened her eyes.

Edward Cullen was still standing on her stoop. He was different and the same. As gorgeous as she remembered, and oh god. As much as her memories of him these last six years had hurt, seeing him right in front of her was devastating.

She dropped her hands to her side, trying to pretend she wasn't shaking as badly as she was. "Ed...Edward."

His eyes twitched at the corners. "So you do remember me."

"I...Yeah. I...What are you doing here?"

He took a deep breath, and it seemed to her he was fighting anger. "Can I come in?"

Bella looked back and forth between Edward and her shabby apartment. She tried to figure out if she should be scared.

No. She was a lot of things right then, but scared wasn't one of them.

"Yeah, um… Come in." Anyway, if she didn't sit soon, she was going to fall. She pulled her robe tighter around her and sat heavily on an oversized pillow, leaving the couch for him. She gestured at it. "How the hell...and why?"

She didn't even know where to start.

"How did I find you?" he asked.

Bella nodded, unable to speak.

He ran his hand through his hair, looking away from her. The restless energy between them was unbearable, and yet Bella was frozen too. "You talked about your dad. You told me his name once. I found Forks. I found someone who knew you and your family had moved to Olympia. There were no Higginbothams, so I tried your dad's name. There was one Bella Swan in the phonebook." His words got progressively tighter as he spoke, and he had to swallow hard. "So here I am."

"But why?" she asked, breathless.

He raised his head then, fixing her with a look that had her terrified.

Bella stood up and pressed herself back against the wall. "You know," she whispered.

Fury sparked in his eyes, and he spoke through clenched teeth, but he didn't move. "You were pregnant."

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wrapped her arms around herself, turning her head. This wasn't happening. How was this happening? She had a million questions and none at all. She couldn't keep hold of a thought long enough to grasp it.

"Look, I'm trying not to lose it here," Edward said, impatience coloring his tone. "What the hell? How the hell could you do this?"

She shook her head, trying to speak and failing. It was completely blowing her mind that he was here. He knew. He knew and she was going to have to tell him…

Oh, god.

How many times had she thought of him and what she would say? How could she even begin to apologize. She'd screamed the words once, over and over in an incoherent tantrum when the enormity of what happened hit her. In her fantasies, she found just the right words and spoke eloquently.

In reality, her words were a barely there whisper.

"I'm sorry."

"I thought at the very least we were friends. You knew me." He scoffed. "I thought I knew you, but apparently, I didn't. How could you do this? If you didn't want her, I would have taken her. For god's sake, anything was better than where she ended up. Did you give her to a homeless druggie, or did you sell her? Did you leave her in a dumpster? What?"

Bella had stopped breathing. His words were sinking into her consciousness.

She. Her.

He said her.

Where she ended up.

Did you give her to a druggie?

Bella flew at him, grabbing him, the fabric of his shirt twisting in her hands. "My baby. My baby. You know what happened to him?"

His body jolted and he wrapped his hands around her wrists, but he didn't do more than that. "Let go of me. What are you doing?"

Bella clenched tighter, deranged with this sudden, wild hope. Fear. She had no idea what the fuck was going on in her own head. She needed to hear him say it. She needed to understand. "Tell me. The baby. Our baby. I lost it. I lost the baby." She gasped in a huge gulp of air. "I woke up, and it was gone. I never saw him. I never even knew if it was a boy or a girl. I never knew. It was just gone."

Her words broke off in a sob, and she reeled, too many horrible memories assaulting her all at once. Why was this happening? Was any of this really happening? She couldn't deal with this.

She let go of him, falling backward onto her ass, her legs no longer able to hold her. "He was gone. He was just gone."

Edward knelt in front of her. She flinched when he touched her hair. "You lost her?"

Her.

She raised her head, blinking through tears. "Her?" she said out loud. "It was a her? A girl?"

The fury had drained from his eyes, replaced by a confusion that went as deep as hers. "Yes. A girl. You didn't...how could you not know?"

She shook her head, ignoring his words. "You know h-her? Is she...she…" Bella swallowed a whimper and tried again. "She's alive?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes. Her name is Katie."

That was too much. Way too much. Her brain couldn't handle it.

"Bella? Oh, hell. Bella. You need to breathe. Look at me. Look at me. Just calm down. Calm down, and breathe."

She couldn't. Her head swam.

Just like it had on the worst day of her life, blackness encroached and took her.

A/N: *whistles innocently*

So. Hi?