A/N: A couple of you called me out on the fact that Stanford is not one of the Ivy League schools, which is something I was genuinely unaware of. My bad. :)

Quick announcement. So I did some work for an app (Iphone and Android) called Episode. It's an app that offers up choose your own adventure stories. If you are interested or you just want to do me a favor (if the story gets enough hits, I get to continue it), hit up the app and take a look at my story, Studio Sweetheart. You should be able to find it under genre: Romance and Drama, then click on Pilots. It's a free app.

Here's the summary: Nineteen-year-old Sophia Bardot is the sweet, wholesome America's sweetheart actress on a popular tweens television show. Think Miley Cyrus the Disney years. The studios are trying to push her on the golden boy of television, Brandon Blakely. But Sophia's eye is being drawn to one of the grips, the older, not-so-squeaky-clean, very-unimpressed-by-Hollywood Ryder Salazar.

~The night Edward found out~

Jasper stood in the doorway of his daughter's room for a long time just watching her sleep. In the light from the hallway, he could see her features well enough, not that he needed to. He knew every face she made, every pout, every giggle, every smile, every frown.

His eyes stung with tears, but he didn't want to close them. Not yet. Not if…

Arms encircled him from behind, and Emmett pulled him backward against his chest. He ducked his head and kissed the side of Jasper's hair.

"I don't think you understand what you've done," Jasper said in a whisper, folding his hands over Emmett's but otherwise not turning in to his kiss.

"What?" Emmett asked in his ear.

Jasper took a shaky breath, his eyes still on their daughter. Oh, Christ. Their baby girl. Their baby.

Now Jasper did close his eyes. Twin tears slid down his cheeks. "Em, our adoption is only legal if both parents sign away their rights."

Emmett stiffened, his arms gone tense around him. "But she's ours."

"Not according to the law." He reached a hand up, wiping away the remnants of his tears, trying not to lose it completely. "He never gave up his rights. If he wants her, there would be no way for us to fight it."

~Friday Night, The Next Week~

Edward watched the chaos going on around him, struck dumb by how much his life had changed in one short week. He'd taken a temporary leave from the school-finding out he had a six-year-old daughter who had been, however briefly, in the hands of a drug addict had been way too much for him to wrap his head around and still go to work. He'd found the proverbial one that got away only to learn she'd gotten away with the a bun in the oven and a story that traumatized him just hearing about it. She and her father were in his condo along with Jasper and Emmett, who only ever should have been the parents of one of his students.

Somehow, Edward resisted the urge to curl up into a fetal ball. Instead, he secured Alice's hand in his, watching the conversation unfold helplessly.

"I need to see her," Bella said. Though her voice trembled, she stood up straight as she faced Jasper and Emmett, which spoke a lot about her courage. She was a small woman, and they were very imposing men hellbent on protecting their little girl.

"I can appreciate your position, Miss Swan. I'm not trying to judge you," Jasper said in a tone that implied the exact opposite of his words. "You're used to putting your own wants first, but I'm a parent. What's best for Katie comes first. Always. We can't agree to let you see her until we know you're not going to confuse her."

Edward bristled. Jasper wasn't speaking to Bella with anything approaching respect. He'd given Edward that much the night he and Emmett came charging into his house.

"Confuse her with what?" Bella asked, managing to look both pissed and uncertain.

"Any of this bullshit," Emmett said, ever the hothead. "Runaway teenagers who give birth on the streets without even knowing what kind of baby they had. And you-" he gestured at Edward "-telling us you were at Stanford when Katie was born. How is it you were both down there and ended up here in Washington too? That's a hell of a coincidence. That's a hell of a story you want us to swallow, and I call bullshit."

"What you need to swallow is one simple fact, Mr. McCarty," Charlie Swan broke in, his expression livid and his hand on his daughter's shoulder. "And as a cop, it should be a fact you're intimately familiar with. The law has the final word. The fact of the matter is, the baby you adopted was a kidnapped child." He held his hand up, stopping both Emmett and Jasper's protests. "We all know that wasn't your fault or your doing, but that's beside the point. When a kidnapped child is found, it's returned to the parents. Now," he spoke over the two men's protests, "what you two are failing to see is that neither Bella nor Edward over there is asking you to hand Katie over right now. The point is that either of them could at any given moment, and you would have no leg to stand on. So maybe you want to think about not antagonizing my daughter, because if we have to get the law involved, you will lose."

Jasper looked at Emmett, his glare hard and accusing. To Edward's surprise, the man seemed to shrink under his husband's stare. His shoulders hunched inward, and he stumbled back a couple of steps as though he needed the wall to support him.

Edward felt sorry for them. He truly did. He understood their perspective entirely. They'd raised Katie from infancy. She was their daughter, and yet somehow, they were powerless to keep her, when push came to shove.

But Bella…

And he hadn't even begun to deal with how confused he felt about the whole situation.

Jasper swallowed hard and looked back to Charlie, Edward noted, instead of Bella. "We're not trying to keep you away from Katie. Just…" A pained look came over his face, and he bowed his head. "I'm just asking you not to confuse her until you know what you're going to do. We told her her birth mother died, because that was what we believed. I think it's best she doesn't know who you are until we're all sure what's going to happen."

"I think that's fair." Bella took a shaky breath, and looked to Emmett. "Look, despite what you may think, I'm not trying to hurt anyone, least of all Katie. Whatever paranoid theory you have, it can't possibly be as fucked...as messed up as the truth, so can we maybe try to stick to that?"

"That's easy to say when it's your truth," Emmett said.

Bella laughed, and it was a bitter sound. "Easy? Easy? Buddy, you have no fucking idea what you're talking about."

Obviously looking for another target, Emmett fixed his glare on Edward next. "What about you, Mr. Cullen?" He said Edward's last name sarcastically, addressing him pointedly as a teacher. "You've been awfully quiet. Where the hell are you at with all this?"

Edward's throat tightened, and he coughed to clear it. "I think I'm the opposite side of the coin from Bella. I've met Katie. I know her." He took a breath through his nose to steady himself. "But I only found out a week ago I was a father at all. Bella's never seen her, but she's been mourning a child that was taken from her for six years. I think Bella should get to see her daughter. Other than that, I don't know what to think or what happens next."

Alice squeezed his hand.

"I think what happens next is we set a time for Bella to see Katie," Charlie said. "Today."

"Tomorrow," Jasper countered.

Charlie was about to argue, but Bella put a hand on his arm. "No, Dad. Tomorrow's okay." She looked quite a bit paler than she had a moment before. "A little breathing room would be okay."

The look Jasper pinned her with then made Edward want to punch him, though he wasn't sure why. But Jasper tempered his expression and when he spoke, his tone was almost gentle. Almost. "You know, if you don't want to meet her, that would be understandable. You'd be doing everyone a favor if you wanted to pretend none of this ever happened."

Even Edward was taken aback by that comment. "What the hell?" he said at the same time Bella and Charlie started talking.

Jasper raised his voice to speak over them. "Hey, I'm just trying to be realistic here. Obviously you didn't tell Edward you were pregnant, because the fact he had a kid was news to him. You were seventeen, and you gave birth on the street. Were you even planning to keep her?"

Bella just stared at him as though she couldn't believe what he was saying.

"I get that you feel responsible that someone took her," Jasper said. "Maybe you're acting the way you think everyone expects you to, but Katie is fine. Don't push yourself into her life just because you think it's the right thing to do. I'm just saying, don't feel obligated."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bella asked, her tone biting. "Obligated? You think I only want to see her because I feel obligated?"

"All I know is that if she'd been taken from us, if she was kidnapped, the second we knew where she was, we'd be there. No force on earth could stop us from getting to our daughter no matter what. You've known about her for two days now, and you're still putting off seeing her."

Bella wrapped her arms around herself, staring at Jasper with a look that was a mixture of hate and pleading. "I've thought about her and wanted her with me every single day for six years. I want her in my arms right now. But she won't know me, won't even know I wanted her, and I never, ever would have given her up. I want a few more hours so I'll be calm when I meet her, because I don't want to scare her. If that makes me a bad mother-"

"You're not her mother!" Jasper snarled the words at her, his features twisting with fury. "You didn't raise her. You didn't make her the person she is, we did. What happened to you was horrible. No one's saying it isn't, but it happened. Katie is thriving. She's got two parents who love her, and she has everything she needs. If you care about her at all, you'd leave us the hell alone instead of disrupting her whole whole world because you want a chance to play mommy."

Charlie was up and in Jasper's face in a heartbeat then, and Emmett too leapt up to his husband's defense. They were three daddies, arguing and snarling and growling at each other in protection of their daughters.

Edward, on the other hand, only had eyes for Bella. Jasper's words seemed to have had a profound effect on her. She was sitting stock-still; the color drained from her features, staring straight ahead with a look on her face that hurt Edward in the depths of his soul. He had to go to her. He was up and moving before he could even think about what he was doing.

He took Charlie's vacated seat on the couch beside her and took her hand in both of his. She started at his touch and turned to look at him, her expression the devastated look of a woman whose every fear had been thrown in her face. Her palms were freezing cold, and Edward had to stop himself from bringing her hands to his lips to blow some warmth against her skin.

His urge to comfort and protect Bella was the only thing that made sense in his world right then. Jasper's words had been cruel, and he could hold her hand through that. In everything else, Edward wasn't an active participant. Technically, since he and Bella weren't a unit, he should have been looking out for his own interests. There was Bella's side, Jasper and Emmett's side, and Edward's side. He had rights that needed protecting and an opinion that deserved to be counted.

What that opinion was, Edward had no idea. Aside from his decision to track Bella down, this whole situation was happening to Edward, out of his control. He was helpless to do anything but watch as Charlie argued with Katie's daddies. It was as though he was a child again, waiting for the adults to dictate the next part of his life.

It was Alice who finally called them all to order. She stood up, put her fingers in her mouth, and whistled to get everyone's attention. "Sit down. All of you sit down."

They all looked disgruntled about it, but they obeyed without question. Edward thought about giving Charlie back his seat, but Bella held on. Charlie huffed, but he sat on his daughter's other side.

Alice nodded, satisfied. "Good. Now look. It's pretty understandable that everyone's upset. This whole thing is fucked up, beyond fucked up, for all of you, and it's no one's fault."

Emmett scoffed, casting a glare at Bella that spoke volumes, but Alice stared him down. "Regardless of how you feel right now, you've all got to come to grips with this reality. This is happening, and there's no undoing it. I think you can all agree you can all use a day to wrap your heads around this before you put Katie in the middle. I'm sure everyone wants what's best for her; you can agree with that, right?"

"If you were really interested in what's best for-" Emmett started, but Alice wasn't about to lose control of the conversation.

"Enough. You're angry. Everyone's angry. But you don't get to take it out on Bella or my brother. They didn't do this to you."

Emmett seemed to shrink in on himself with those words, his broad shoulders hunching inward.

"We agree Bella gets to meet Katie tomorrow. Accept that's going to happen, and you'll all figure out the next step after that. Can you agree?"

One by one, everyone nodded. Jasper was the last. "Okay. You can come to the house." A shadow crossed his face, and he mimicked his husband's stooped, broken pose. "Saturday mornings are quiet for us. Family time."

"Thank you," Bella said in a shaky whisper. Her fingers tightened around Edward's.

Emmett stood up, furious all over again. "Are we done here?"

"For now," Charlie said with a note of warning.

Emmett took Jasper's hand, pulling him up. "This whole thing is fucked, and one of you is trying to pull something. Whatever. Katie is happy. You just remember you're the ones who destroyed her life."

He didn't wait for anyone to argue. He pulled Jasper with him out of Edward's apartment and slammed the door behind them.

As soon as they were gone, Bella crumpled forward, finally pulling her hand from Edward's so she could cover her face. He couldn't tell if she was crying, but he knew she was hurting. He put a tentative hand on her shoulder.

"Bella, what they said wasn't true," Charlie said, rubbing her back.

"Yes it was. At least part of it."

"Bella-"

"I can't deal with thinking about that right now." Bella took a steadying breath, and when she raised her head, Edward saw she wasn't crying. Her eyes were watery, but she wasn't crying. She looked at him. "Can I talk to you? Alone?"

The idea made Edward nervous, but he nodded without hesitation.

Alice knew a cue when she heard one. She offered a hand to Charlie to help him up. "Come on, Charlie. You and I should get to know each other. We're going to be great friends, I think."

Charlie seemed reluctant to leave Bella, but he let Alice lead him to the door. "Call me if you need me," he said to his daughter.

They'd been gone for a full five minutes before Bella spoke. "You haven't said a word all day."

Edward sighed. "I don't know what to say. I don't have any words at all, let alone ones that would help anything."

"Do you think I'm wrong for wanting to meet her?" she asked, her voice painfully small.

"No." This, at least, he was sure about.

"I was a seventeen-year-old liar and a runaway. I was careless, and she could have died."

"The way you told it to me, you were desperate, alone, and scared. It's true what they say about hindsight, you know. We'd all make better choices if we knew how everything was going to turn out, but that's not the way the world works.

"Whatever you were, whatever mistakes you made, it doesn't mean you deserved to have your baby taken away from you. Whatever could have happened is irrelevant. Emmett and Jasper know that too. They're just defensive right now."

Bella nodded. She'd started tapping her foot in a nervous twitch. She stared off, away from him, her foot tapping away for another minute before she spoke again. "I'm not going to ask you where you are with this or what you want to do. I'm not ready to deal with that yet."

Edward couldn't pretend he wasn't relieved. He wouldn't have had an answer for her, at least not yet.

"What I want to ask is if you'll go with me to meet her," Bella said.

Edward tilted his head to look at her. "Just us, you mean?"

Bella nodded. "I just…" She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking a bit. "One way or another, this is going to hurt Katie at some point. She's going to be confused, and I hate that. If I can minimize that even a little bit…"

She shook her head and tried again. "I don't know how I'm going to handle tomorrow. I don't know how I'm going to react. I don't know if I'm going to break down… I just don't know. What I was thinking was that Katie knows you. She trusts you. Whatever happens, she might be more comfortable if someone she knew was there with me. Am I making sense?"

"I'm following you."

"I was thinking it might be easier if I go as a friend of yours. I know she's not going to know who I… who we are to her tomorrow, but we have to have some story. I'd feel better if you were there. For her."

Though it was ridiculous, the thought of facing that tiny, sweet six-year-old scared Edward more than anything else in his memory. He'd taken an emergency leave of absence from the school, so he hadn't seen Katie at all since they day Emmett had come barging into his apartment.

He knew exactly what had him so afraid. Science and anecdotal evidence told him he was a father, but he didn't feel like a father. When he pictured Katie, he didn't think of her as his daughter. She was his student. He was terrified of what would happen when she was right in front of him again.

What if he felt nothing?

What if he felt everything?

Both prospects were equally terrifying, but as Alice said, this was happening. There was no putting off reality.

"I'll go with you."

A/N: So that happened…

If you don't mind doing me a favor, check the announcement at the top of the screen regarding some other writing work I've been doing.

Next chapter Bella gets to meet her baby :)