A/N: Oye. I don't know about this habit I'm getting into about using my updates to regulate my frustrations. HEY, it's better than binge eating, right? You guys and your feedback are my drug, baby. Plus it's still Monday for me so TECHNICALLY I'm on schedule (You just got an extra chapter in there hehehe).

That being said...I've been told this is a very hard chapter, and I know for a fact some of you are going to yell at me. Here we go.

Edward had often heard that some things in life were like being on a roller coaster. Now, he understood the comparison. This whole situation was exactly like being on a roller coaster… if you were also plagued with anxiety issues. There was that feeling of claustrophobia as the restraints came down, and then, when the car started to move, the knowledge that he couldn't get out-not in the middle of the ride. Then the painfully slow climb to the top of the highest peak, each click of machinery ominous as it pulled him forward against his will. The too-long moment of trepidation right before the release and then the fear and adrenaline of the fall making his stomach churn.

That was exactly what his life felt like-like he wanted desperately for time to slow, to stop, to let him get out and breathe. It wasn't that he didn't want what was at the end of the ride. He had a fairy tale vision that made his heart ache with want of Katie running to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, giggling with joy and calling him Daddy. He wanted that, but not like this. He felt as though if he were only allowed to get off the damn coaster, free of the restraints, if he could only think clearly, he might be able to find a smoother route-one without so many stomach-churning dips. Really, he could do without the adrenaline rush, thank you very much.

His eyes strayed from his task to Bella, across the room. If only…

If she'd told him she was pregnant, their road wouldn't have been smooth, but it wouldn't have been this. As much as the rational part of him knew it wasn't as simple as all that, there was resentment in his heart. He hated how much of his life was undefined, how he had to give up his home, what he was going to do about his job was uncertain. He hated that he'd have to convince his six-year-old daughter that he was her daddy. He hated that he was confused about how he felt about the little girl, even if he believed his father when he said that would change. He'd always wanted a family, but not like this.

Now wasn't the time to deal with any of that. It was moving day, and there were way too many people packed in Bella's tiny apartment. Talk about claustrophobia.

Bella had painfully little in her apartment, painfully little to her name. But what she had was precious to her. Edward was beginning to realize just how hard earned it all was. That was why, when Alice began to mutter about how they didn't need two couches, and Edward's furniture was much newer, he shut her up before Bella could hear her.

As he taped up the boxes, Edward watched Bella with her family. When they first knew each other, she'd mentioned a mother and stepfather. She hadn't said much about them, only nodded in agreement when Edward asked if her mother was paying for her schooling. Obviously, that had been a lie.

He had so many questions, so many blank spaces to fill in when it came to this girl, this woman. She'd been the one that got away, the one he hadn't realized was in his blood and under his skin until she'd disappeared from his life. The tiny part of him that had room to think about such things had almost managed to convince the rest of him that the girl he knew was a figment of fiction. It was all a lie. It was easy to think that when she'd only ever been scared, defensive, or upset in his presence since he'd shown up on her doorstep.

Bella, when she was with her siblings, was much lighter, much more like the girl he remembered. The kids had been assigned the task of packing up Bella's bookshelf. Predictably, they each became much more interested in flipping through the books rather than packing them. With gentle Angela, Bella chatted about American Girl and the Babysitter's Club books she'd found in a thrift store when she was her age. She and Mike bent their heads together, snickering and sharing Bella's dark humor when he found her Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. When he used the front of the book-a macabre, frightening looking skull-to scare Tyler, Bella picked the boy up and soothed him by making him laugh, so he forgot his fear in a heartbeat.

When Edward went over to them, Bella's smile got tighter. She ducked her head, looking at him only furtively. "Hey."

"Hey," he said, bashful and awkward for reasons he couldn't quite figure. "Need some help?"

"Um, sure. Ty packed that box," she said, her smile wide again as she pointed. "Maybe you could fit a few more things in it?"

Edward peeked in the box and saw what had her so amused. Tyler's idea of packing apparently consisted of throwing a few books in there haphazardly. "I'm on it," he said.

The kids, who had been observing them with curiosity, ganged up on him after a minute.

"Are you Bella's boyfriend?" Angela asked, her pretty face the picture of innocence.

"They're living together, aren't they? And they had a baby," Mike said, giving Edward the hairy eyeball.

"But they're gonna have different rooms. I heard them say."

"Are you nice?" Tyler said, looking at Edward warily. "Daddy said brothers and sisters should look out for each other, so if you're not nice, you better watch out!"

"O-kay." Bella put her hand over Tyler's mouth, drawing him onto her lap. "Guys, take it down a notch."

Edward's lip twitched in amusement, and he looked at Bella, winking at her to remind her he was used to dealing with children. He looked at Tyler first, because he knew his question was actually the most important. Angela and Mike had to be wondering the same thing. He could see they loved their big sister. "I think I'm nice. At least I try very hard not to be mean."

"And I'm not Bella's boyfriend." He looked over to Bella, speaking carefully. "Not right now, but I was." This wasn't strictly true, but they were children. Edits came with the territory. "When we both lived in California."

"Bella lived with bad people in California," Angela said.

"I didn't know about that."

Mike huffed. "You were her boyfriend, and you didn't know her stepdad was hurting her?"

Edward felt a twinge of guilt at that. He remembered seeing bruises on her. On her arms, her legs. He couldn't remember the excuses she gave, or if he even asked. He remembered when they were together-it had only been five times-there was a bruise just below her breastbone. He'd kissed her there, kissing it better.

If only.

"Mikey," Bella said, her voice soft. "My life was full of really bad things in California." Her cheeks tinged pink, and she was looking anywhere but at him. "Edward was the only good thing. Life doesn't always make sense, little brother."

Some minutes later, in the hustle and bustle of people moving in and out of the house, Edward and Bella shared one quiet moment. "I'm glad you found them, Bella," he said. "Your family, I mean. They're protective. The boys take after your dad a lot that way."

Bella's lips quirked upward, though she didn't look at him. "Don't let Angela fool you. She's a gentle soul, but if she thought you were an asshole, she'd be after you in a heartbeat."

"I don't doubt that."

She sighed and looked up, meeting his eyes. "I didn't lie about my name, you know."

"What?"

"My name, when I met you. Higginbotham was my mom's maiden name. It was my name all my life." She looked away from him, her expression pinched. "They were good to me when I didn't deserve it. All of them. It took me a while to believe they could want me, but they did. When I turned twenty, my dad asked what I wanted for my birthday, and I said I wanted to be a Swan. That's what he gave me that year. His name."

"Bella, dear? Is this worth keeping?"

Edward started as his mother came wandering out of Bella's room with a shoebox full of truly random items. It looked like junk, but Bella grinned.

"All the things the kids gave me," she said. "Mikey and Angela. When they were tiny."

Esme put the lid back on and put the shoebox in a larger box. "Definitely worth keeping."

~0~

Bella couldn't stop wringing her hands. She wanted so badly to be stoic, calm. Not for herself. She'd grown up knowing she was a mess; that wasn't a surprise, but it wasn't okay. Not right now.

Why, Jesus god, why was her first act as a mother to do this to her baby girl? To tell her that she'd been kidnapped and ripped away from the first person who'd ever loved her? To tell her that setting that right would hurt? When Tyler was born, Bella had been only too eager to get up with him in the middle of the night. How she'd dreamed of doing that for her own child, being the one to hold her and feed her. She'd have done anything for her baby, would do anything now.

Would Katie ever let Bella hold her?

Edward, sitting beside her, put his hand on his knee palm up in an offer. Despite the fact her palm was probably sweaty with nerves Bella took his hand. She squeezed him. He squeezed back. It hurt. Neither of them cared.

Across from them, on the larger couch, Jasper sat, alone for the moment. He wasn't looking at them, wasn't crying, but it was very clear he had been. His eyes were bloodshot, but then, all of theirs were. He looked gaunt somehow, sickly.

When they heard Emmett's step on the stair, Bella gulped, and Jasper closed his eyes, his lips moving as though he were praying for strength. He straightened up as Emmett came in the room with Katie in his arms. She was clinging to his neck, the look on her face wary.

Mike and Angela were like that when they were little, Bella remembered. Tyler was like that now. It was as though small children were able to sense the mood in the air. She did raise her head from his shoulder when she saw Edward and Bella. She started to smile, and both Bella and Edward did their best to smile back. It must not have worked though, because Katie knitted her brow. "Am I in trouble at school?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"No," all four of them said.

Emmett sighed and walked to the couch. He settled Katie between him and Jasper. Then they both slid off the couch onto the floor on their knees so the could look up at her. "Okay, baby," Emmett said, his large hand at her side. "Just remember no one is mad at you, okay? No one here did anything wrong, and you don't have to be afraid."

Katie's lower lip began to tremble, but she took a deep breath visibly calming herself as she looked down at her daddies. Brave little thing, Bella thought, adding that characteristic to her knowledge bank. It was strange, this notion of soaking up everything she could about Katie while simultaneously dreading what they were about to do to the little girl's life.

"You know when we did the genetics tests at your school a few weeks ago?" Jasper said, his voice tight with emotion.

Katie brightened somewhat. "Oh, yes. That was a lot of tests."

"And you remember we talked about how you could be related to anyone, and I always run the tests you take against your genes to check?"

"Uh huh." Again, Katie's expression brightened. "Does someone have genes like me?"

Bella wanted to smile. Katie was so eager and curious, but she knew what was coming. She knew, with all likelihood, they were about to turn her daughter's excitement into something else entirely.

"Yes, sugar." Jasper swallowed hard. "What we found out, actually, is that Edward is… He's your father, sweetheart."

Beside Bella, Edward took a shaky breath. His hand in hers shook, and she clasped it tighter.

Katie's eyes went wide, and she looked from her daddies to Edward and back again. She didn't speak.

"I need you to listen, baby, because he told us some things we didn't know before," Emmett said. "And it might be a little scary for you to hear, but you're safe. Nothing bad is going to happen to you."

"Okay," Katie said in a tiny, quaking voice. She was looking down now, not looking at anyone, as though she were too scared to look in Edward's direction.

"See, the lady who had you, the lady who got sick and died...we thought she was your mother." Emmett had to swallow several times before he could continue. "But she wasn't. When you were just a little baby, before you could remember things, that lady did a bad thing. She took you away from your real mother. She stole you."

Katie's lower lip began to tremble, and she took in sharp breaths. Both Emmett and Jasper got to their feet and sat again beside her on the couch. She turned toward Jasper, burying her head against his side.

"You know she died, baby. She can't get you. No one is going to hurt you," Jasper said, both he and Emmett stroking her back and hair. "You understand that, right?"

"It's scary," Katie said plaintively, but she sniffed, calming again. "I don't remember."

"You were little. It was when you were new," Emmett explained again. "You remember how small you were in your very first pictures with us?"

"Uh huh."

"It was way before that."

Katie sniffled again and she peeked at him. "I don't remember being a baby."

"No, and that's okay. But what I'm trying to tell you is, you were stolen away from your mother and father. They've been looking for you all this time." His voice cracked, and he put a hand to his lips.

Jasper cupped her cheek, tilting her head up to him, effectively distracting her from the fact her big, strong daddy was about to start crying his eyes out. "Katie. Bella is your mother."

Bella held her breath. For three of the longest seconds, there was a terrible silence in the room. She wondered if she should say something, but Katie wasn't looking at her, and Edward wasn't speaking up either.

Then, Katie began to cry. It was soft at first but quickly escalated to sobs that wracked her little body. She stood up on the couch and wrapped her arms around Emmett's neck, babbling something that Bella couldn't understand in between hysterical gasps. Emmett gathered her close, and Jasper stood up, turning to Edward and Bella.

"She wants you to leave," he said. His voice was soft, but there was a no-nonsense edge that hinted that the idea wasn't a suggestion.

Bella swallowed hard, jittery, her eyes tearing up as she and Edward stood. "Why is she crying? Does she-"

"She's overwhelmed. She's just overwhelmed," Jasper said.

That made sense, of course. Hadn't Bella fainted dead away? And now that Jasper said it, she could tell the way Katie was crying wasn't a normal child's cry. Overwhelmed was better than a lot of other reasons she could be crying, but it still shattered Bella's heart.

"Can we please have some time with her alone?" Jasper asked. Again, his tone spoke volumes. Bella wouldn't have put it past him to haul them out of his house with his bare hands if they refused.

But they'd already agreed to this. When they discussed with Marcus how to tell Katie, they'd agreed all four of them would be there in case she had questions. In the eventuality she got too scared or confused at Edward and Bella's presence, they'd agreed Jasper and Emmett could talk to her alone.

In Marcus's conference room, it had been easy to say she would do it. In reality, Bella didn't want to leave her child sobbing and scared. She wanted to be the one to comfort her and reassure her.

"Come on, Bella," Edward said, tugging her hand. His voice was raw and wrecked. "We can sit in the car a while."

She let him pull her away, though every step she took made her own tears worse. She was ready to sob herself by the time they got to the door. She wasn't the only one either. As she turned around, she could see tears on Edward's cheeks, too.

It was Jasper she looked to, though. There were tears in his eyes, but also a ferocity, a kind of hatred. All this time she'd tried so hard to be understanding. Now she was terrified of leaving. "Please don't make her hate us," she said, her voice cracking. "Please."

"If you tell her to hate us, she will," Edward said, his voice pleading, too. "You can make her hate us and make her more scared. Please don't do that."

In this, Jasper and Emmett had all the power, and they all knew it.

Jasper's eyes narrowed, and his breath was ragged. He wanted to tell Katie just those things. Bella could see it in his eyes. He wanted to go back in that house and tell his baby girl that it was their fault-Bella and Edward's-that this was happening, that she was scared and confused. He wanted to tell her that they were the kidnappers, and they would steal her away.

"Poppa! Poppa!" Katie called clearly, and Bella whimpered. She was needy for her daddies. That made sense too, but it did hurt.

Jasper breathed in through his nose, stepping forward so that they had to take that final step out of the house. "Let us calm her down," he said, and he slammed the door in their faces.

Bella didn't miss that he made no promises. She turned toward Edward, trembling too hard to keep herself upright. He wrapped his arms around her, shaking just as much, and they sunk down onto the porch together. They rocked together, tangled up as tightly as possible, crying quiet tears.

For minutes, it seemed impossible to breathe and impossible to believe any happiness could come out of this. For the millionth time, Bella wondered if she was doing the right thing. Would it be better to walk away?

She couldn't. She couldn't. She was physically incapable. The thought alone was debilitatingly painful. To actually go through with it would have struck her dead before she took two steps.

After a few minutes, it was a little easier to breathe. Slightly. Her poor, battered heart. She'd lived with a broken heart and perforated lungs for years. Days like this, seeing Katie's confusion, were only adding to the mess of stab wounds. The other wounds, though, were old and scarred. These were fresh, raw, bleeding.

But these wounds were different than the ones she'd suffered before. Before, she'd been both wounded and desolate. The first step was done and over with. Katie knew she had a mother and father who wanted her. This was the bad part-the re-breaking of bones so they could mend right, so they could piece their family back together.

Now that the first step was taken, she had hope.

A/N: Oye.

How are you, my darlings?