A/N: Man. I've been threatened, called an emotional sadist, spanked, and yelled at. Honestly, I just…

Well, okay, I deserved it. ;)

Okay, so, to clear up the timeline, which I realize is confusing. Passages marked Stanford are seven years in the past, around the time E/B met. Edward, who lives in Seattle, found out on a Wednesday night. It took him a week to find Bella, so that was Wednesday night of the following week. She lives in Olympia.

Stanford

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Bella crossed her arms, scooting away from him on the couch.

When had they gotten so close anyway?

"A lot of people don't know their fathers," Bella said.

Edward made an effort to close his mouth. "I'm sorry. It happens, I know. But usually people at least know who their fathers are. Maybe they only see them every few years, but they exist."

Bella stared down at her shoes, twisting her hands in her lap, and Edward felt like an ass. "I'm sorry," he said, sliding over to close the space. "It just took me by surprise, that's all. It's weird, isn't it? That you don't even know what he looks like?"

She shrugged, still not looking up. "I've never thought about it."

"Yeah, you have."

He didn't say the words accusingly, but he knew they were true. "Have you ever thought of dropping in on him?"

Her head snapped up, and she laughed in surprise. "Come off it."

"Why not? You're an adult now. There's no question of child support, and your mom is working her ass off to send you here." He gestured vaguely out the door toward the campus. "Maybe he would be more receptive to having a conversation when he knows he's off the hook."

She looked away again. "It's not like that."

"You're not going to tell me he's not an asshole for not seeing you all these years."

"Maybe he's an asshole. I don't know." She smiled at him-a weak smile. "He never got the chance to reject me. Mom never told him I existed."

Edward balked.

Bella shoved him just a little too hard to be playful. "You're staring at me like I'm a freak again."

"You're not a freak. I'm the one being naive, I guess."

"Naive?"

Edward shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's what Tanya tells me." He laughed, smiling fondly. "She thinks my mom and dad damaged me. They have a great marriage. They were loving and attentive to Alice and me. She says that's why I get shocked by normal things." He met her eyes and bumped her shoulder with his. "Real life doesn't look like TV."

"Yeah, well. It doesn't look like my life either, I guess."

"Have you even thought of finding him?"

"Sure."

"And?"

"My mother didn't tell him for a reason. He had plans. He had a life." She looked at him and rolled her eyes. "What the fuck is that face?"

"It's just...I'd want to know. If I had a kid? I'd want to know no matter what."

~0~

Olympia

After he assured himself that Bella had only fainted and he laid her on the couch, Edward sequestered himself in her tiny kitchen. He told himself he was just making tea-she did have tea bags even if she didn't have a tea kettle that he could find-but really he needed a second.

The last week of his life had been surreal, and this...this was the acid trip of a lifetime.

His hands trembled as he found a small pan and filled it with water from the sink. He managed to get it on the stove, but then he had to lean against the counter or he had the feeling he was going to fall.

He'd been desperate to find her, desperate for answers. Some part of him had hoped she'd tell him he was insane. She'd never been pregnant. All of this was a big mistake.

Our baby. I lost it.

She made it sound like she'd set it down and it had wandered off.

Not it. Her. Katie. Beautiful, brilliant, day-dreaming Katie.

Edward wiped a hand over his eyes, wishing he had an inhaler. He needed something that could open his airways again.

Katie.

Edward would remember the half-crazed look on Bella's face as long as he lived. He had no idea what the hell was going on. Over the last week, any number of scenarios had played themselves out in his head. He'd been so angry he'd thrown a number of his worst guesses at her. But that look...the unfathomable pain in that look.

He pushed himself off the counter and started opening cabinets. He found a cup, poured hot water into it. He found sugar and, taking a deep breath, he went into the living room.

Bella was sitting upright. When he walked in, her whole body jolted. She rubbed her temples. "Oh god. I thought I imagined all that," she said, her voice a rasp. Her head came up with a gasp, and she looked at him with wide eyes. "I… baby?"

Edward put the cup of tea on the coffee table and sat on the couch, leaving a comfortable distance between them. "Katie," he said, keeping his voice gentle.

Her breath left her, and she crumpled slightly inward, covering her face with her arms. "Oh god. Oh god. Oh god."

"Are you going to faint again? Maybe you should lie down."

She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. "I don't know. I…" She shook her head hard. "I don't understand."

"I guess we're in the same boat then."

Bella took a shaky breath. "She really exists?"

He didn't say anything. Something had prompted him to print out the only picture he had of Katie-a class picture. He dug out his wallet and unfolded the picture.

She stared at the paper as though it was going to bite her. She was taking sharp, staccato breaths. He was about to put the paper away when she reached for it. Her hands were shaking. Badly. So badly that he scooted closer to her, holding the picture in his now steadier hand.

His throat was so dry it took several swallows before he could speak. "This is her," he said quietly, pointing Katie out.

Bella whimpered and gasped, and he watched the tears in her eyes spill over. She wiped them away quickly, still staring at the page. "Fuck. Oh god. Fuck."

"What?" he asked before he could help it. He couldn't read her at all.

She put a hand to her mouth and pressed hard. "It's just… I wouldn't have known her." Her voice cracked. "A mother's supposed to know. That's what they say. A mother would know her own kid anywhere, but I wouldn't have." She breathed in with a gasp, beginning to cry in earnest. "I must have pictured her a billion times, but not like this. Never like this. Not even close. I never…"

It was pure instinct to pull her into his arms. She was so miserable, what could he do but give her a hug?

She came at first, but just as quickly, she shoved him away and stood up. She began to pace. "You are sick. You're so fucking sick."

Edward didn't know what to do but stare. What the-

"I don't know how you found out. I understand why you'd be angry, but this…" She wrapped her arms around herself. Her voice was ragged. "This is cruel."

He stood up, not sure if he deserved to be pissed. He didn't understand what she was accusing him of, but it was clear she was hurting. "Bella-"

"Get away from me." She stumbled backward, her hands up. That look was back-the look that said that never in his sheltered life had he known the kind of pain she was in now. "You fucking bastard." She bent at the waist, hands on her knees as though she couldn't keep herself upright. "Do you have any idea, any fucking idea, what it was like to wake up in the hospital? Empty." She closed her eyes against her tears. "Why would you do this? Six years. I was finally beginning to accept I'd never know what happened to my baby, as if anyone could accept that. I never knew if she was dead or alive. I never saw her. Him. It. He was inside me, and then I was empty. Why would you make me think I could see her? Hold her? Don't you understand? I've died every fucking day since that day. Every day. I can't do this. Why would you try to make me think this little blond girl is my baby?"

"Bella," Edward said, his hands out though he stood still. "I'm telling the truth. I promise you it's the truth."

She sat down hard on couch, shaking her head back and forth. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered over and over again.

Edward's heart was beating out of control. He tried to put the pieces together in a comprehensible picture. "You're saying something happened when you were pregnant? There was blood."

She was sitting hunched over, her arms wrapped around each other, crying quietly. After a minute that may as well have been an age, she spoke in a trembling whisper. "It was an abruption. I was on the street." She flinched. Obviously this story wasn't easy to tell. "In an alley. Alone. I started bleeding. A lot. And then I passed out." She pressed her lips together, smothering a whine. "When I woke up again, I was in the hospital. They said the baby was gone when they got there. It was just me. Bleeding out."

"Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ." Edward sat down on the floor because his legs weren't going to hold him up for very much longer.

They sat in silence for minutes. Bella wept, not hysterically, and Edward just tried to wrap his head around her story. It fit with the larger narrative, though there were still so many questions. Maddening questions.

But right now, it didn't matter what she'd done to him. Hers was obviously the bigger pain, and it took priority for the time being. "Bella… I swear I would never think about telling you this if I wasn't sure. Katie is… ours."

Her breath stuttered.

His head spun. This whole line of discussion was making him dizzy. "Her hair is the same color as my father's," he said. "She daydreams. Like you used to."

She whimpered. "How? How could you possibly know she was yours?"

Edward told her the short version. He explained about the school he worked in, and the test. He told her about the second test in Jasper's lab.

"They showed me a picture of the woman who had her, the woman they thought was her mother. But I knew it was you. I didn't know how the hell it happened, but it couldn't possibly be anyone else." He was staring down at his feet by then. "There was no one else."

Neither of them spoke for long minutes before Edward couldn't take it anymore. "What are you thinking?"

Even then, she didn't answer right away. She wasn't crying anymore, but she was holding herself in the same stiff posture, rocking slightly back and forth. She sniffled. "For a while after I woke up, I lost touch with reality. I convinced myself none of it had happened. I thought I'd made up the fact I was pregnant." She raised her head, looking at him through watery eyes. "I thought you were a figment of my imagination."

Bowing her head again, she rocked a little more frantically. "I can't make myself believe this is real."

"Well, if it helps at all, I've had a little over a week to think about this, and I can't make myself believe it either." He rubbed the palms of his hands over his knees.

"She's… happy? She's been loved?"

"From what I understand, Emmett and Jasper have had her since she was placed in foster care in their home. They adopted her as soon as the courts would allow. They love her very much."

Bella closed her eyes, her rocking slowing to a more soothing pace. "I never knew what to hope for. If it was better for her to be dead, because if she was alive...what was happening to her? What kind of sick fuck would leave me bleeding to death and take a baby?" She swallowed, shaking her head. "That's a terrible thing. To wish your baby was dead, but it would be better, wouldn't it? If she wasn't being loved and taken care of. It would have been better."

"She is loved," he said, because that at least he could be sure of. "They're so good to her."

Bella nodded, biting her lip. "I don't want to wake up now. If I wake up and none of this is real, I'll die."

It wasn't, Edward knew, a matter of dramatics. She was simply stating a fact. "This is real," he said.

Another minute passed in silence before she spoke again. "She's smart?"

"Brilliant. She has to be advanced to get into the school I work at."

Bella tightened her arms around herself. "I was so stupid." She drew her legs up onto the couch and rested her head on her knees, still rocking. "I didn't take care of myself. Never went to the doctor. And then, when I ran, I was starving for days. Thirsty. That meant she was starving too." She shuddered. "I thought I must have ruined her anyway. I must have hurt her."

This whole conversation was like being in a heavyweight fight. Edward's chest might as well have been pummeled for all he could breathe. Again, he had to bite back anger. Why the hell wouldn't she take care of herself? But other bits and pieces of information stood out. She'd been on the run, which explained how the baby ended up in Washington, and she was starving.

"She's fine. Better than fine. She's thriving."

Bella huffed, staring out at nothing. "And her… her parents. They're rich. They must be if they could afford to send her to a school like yours, right?"

"There are some scholarship students, but Katie isn't one of them, no."

"All this time, she wasn't only okay, she was better," she said, processing out loud. "I thought about that too. What an idiot I was to think everything would somehow end up okay. If she hadn't been taken, what kind of mother could I have been? What could I have given her? I figured that part out eventually-that I probably couldn't have given her much of a life. I was seventeen, and-"

"You were what?" Edward asked, his breath leaving him.

She sucked in a breath, looking at him briefly and away. "I was seventeen," she repeated.

"You were eighteen the day we met. You turned nineteen a month later."

"I was sixteen when we met."

"How-"

"Look, I'm sorry. I need a minute, okay? I need to... " She unwound herself and stood up, cinching her robe tighter around her. "Let me take a shower. You can stay, if you want. You can wait. I need a minute."

There were a million things he wanted to say. He wanted to demand answers to all his questions-the ones he had before he got to her door and all the ones that had come up since he'd been here. But he was beginning to truly understand the bomb he'd dropped on her lap.

All of this had turned his sedate life into a train wreck for the last week, but she'd been dealing with a profound loss every day for six years. No wonder she'd fainted at the idea her baby, her kidnapped baby, was within her reach.

He may have been desperate for answers, but they could wait another few minutes. Let her get dressed. "Yeah. Of course. I… I'll be here."

She nodded, a stiff jerk of her neck, and hurried away without another word. The walls were thin. Almost as soon as he heard the water go on, he thought he heard the sound of sobbing. He picked himself up off the floor, feeling like crying himself.

Everything he knew about the world had changed, and despite the fact he'd known he was a father for a week now, it was just beginning to sink in.

What in the name of all that was holy was about to happen?

A/N: Many thanks to songster for all her help and for her wonderful fic rec over at the Fic sisters.

A few more answers for you, yes? Have a good weekend, dear ones.