AN: First of all I have to apologize for how long it took me to write this damn thing. I started it like 2 weeks ago, and I've just struggled with it. Finally, I feel like I'm happy with the way it turned out, and I hope you'll feel the same way too!

Thanks to my beta CallistoLexx for being quick!

APOV

I was avoiding Jasper. It wasn't exactly a conscious decision, but with so much wedding surrounding us as the reception carried on, I couldn't even look him in the eye.

I didn't feel necessarily like it was only my fault—after all, it definitely took two to make a baby—but I did feel bad for keeping it from Jasper for so long. I'd wanted to tell him, but every time I'd gathered my courage, I hadn't been able to get the words past my throat.

Across the room, Rosalie, the most beautiful bride in the history of weddings, gave me a stern look that said "get on with it." Today she looked anything but a hard ass, but I knew better.

Swallowing the hard ball of misery that was threatening to choke me, I glanced around, pretending to look for my errant fiancé, but not really wanting to find him. I knew Rose was dead serious and that she'd definitely tell him if I didn't—which meant that no matter how much I wanted to avoid this, it was unfortunately inevitably going to happen today.

Tonight.

Unconsciously, I settled a hand on my still flat stomach and tried to take a few deep breaths. Calm and relaxed was never my strong suit, but at this rate, I was going to commit a serious word vomit catastrophe and tell him right here, in Rose and Emmett's reception.

I'd never been able to keep secrets; only with the advent of Jasper into my life had I learned to keep my mouth shut. First I'd kept his strange treatment of me from both Rosalie and Bella, and then I'd managed to keep the biggest secret of my life under wraps.

"Alice, there you are."

I turned around and plastered a fake smile on my face. I'd never had to do that with Jasper before—I'd always been so happy to see the love of my life. Now, I was just scared shitless.

Jasper and I had come a long ways to trusting each other. The beginning of our relationship hadn't exactly been auspicious, but after he'd demonstrated that he was determined to do just about anything to win me over—including breaking and entering—I'd begun to trust him. The trust between us wasn't perfect yet though, and deep down, I was terrified he'd choose this moment to leave me. After all he'd only asked for a wife, not a wife and a child.

"It's a beautiful reception, isn't it?" I asked him, simply to say something. Jasper wouldn't know one reception from another. He and Edward and Emmett probably would have been happy on the beach with a keg.

"It is," Jasper said, pulling me towards him. "We should take advantage of this music and dance, 'cause you know, that's what it's for."

I chuckled as he led me to the floor, but my stomach was tied in a million knots.

We began to dance, my head rested against his chest, and if only I didn't have this secret hanging over my head, it would have been just another perfect moment in a long list that we'd experienced together. I'd never really understood how secrets destroyed a relationship, but I was beginning to see how they twisted everything good into something not exactly bad—but still, not exactly right either.

I had to tell him. Now. Before this went any farther. Hell, it had already gone too far.

"I have to talk to you, Jasper," I told him, and my voice was muffled against the starched white shirt of his tux.

"What is it, sweetheart?" he asked and his voice was warm and tender and so loving that I wanted to let the tears fall, regardless of being in the middle of Rosalie's wedding reception.

"Can we go outside?" I knew I sounded terrified and no doubt Jasper was panicking, but I looked up at his face and it was smooth and calm.

He simply nodded and led me off the dance floor, and out a small door to an attached balcony. I shivered, not really from the cold, but mostly from an excess of nervous energy. Jasper, ever the gentleman, removed his tuxedo jacket and draped it around my shoulders.

"Thanks," I mumbled, then forced myself to look up into his eyes instead of down at the ground at my new stilettos. Those were comforting; I had a feeling that in a minute, Jasper's face wouldn't be. I prayed fiercely that he wouldn't be upset about the baby but I knew he would at least be pissed that I'd waited two months to tell him.

"Now what did you want to talk about?"

This was always the moment where I clammed up in the past. But this time, I took a deep breath, met his gaze and forced the words out of my throat.

"Jasper, I'm pregnant."

His breath let out in a big whoosh and his eyes grew very, very wide, but he didn't look upset—not exactly anyway.

I smiled hesitatingly at him and got a resoundingly brilliant grin back right before he grabbed me into his arms and held me tight. "This is wonderful news," he murmured excitedly into my ear and a wave of relief rushed over me. I couldn't hold the tears back and a few of them leaked onto his white shirt.

"How far along are you?" he asked and I felt the hope inside me shrivel.

He was ecstatic about the baby now, but how would he feel about it when he found out I'd been hiding the news for so long?

"Two months," I told him in a small voice, hiding my face in his shirt, unable to meet his eyes.

Jasper grew absolutely still and I could feel his heart speed up.

"How long have you known?" he asked and his voice was definitely cooler than it had been only a moment before.

"About six weeks."

"Six weeks?" His voice wasn't just cool now—it was angry and upset and full of disbelief. He pushed me away from him and ran a hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry," I said, raising my hands in supplication. "I should have told you sooner." The pit of dread in my stomach deepened and I had never been so terrified as I was in this moment. If Jasper left me, I could never live with myself.

"Six weeks and you didn't think I should know?"

"I tried to tell you." Tears clogged my throat and panic rose hard and fast at the angry expression on his face. "It's not an easy thing to confess."

The deep lines of anger on Jasper's face morphed into confusion. "Why wouldn't it be? Aren't you happy about the baby? Did you think I'd be upset?"

He fired the questions at me like bullets and I was unprepared to dodge them. I didn't even understand my reasons for keeping the baby a secret. "Of course not," I told him, desperately trying to keep my voice calm and even, "and naturally, I'm thrilled that I'm having a baby."

"We're. We're having a baby," Jasper reminded me, his lips pressed together in a thin, hard line. I could nearly feel the frustration radiating off him.

"Oh. Right." I didn't know what else to say to him—maybe that in the six weeks I'd known that I was pregnant, not once had I considered that the baby was ours. Only that the baby was mine. This, I knew, was not a good sign.

"We can fix this," Jasper said, running his hand through his hair yet again, causing it to nearly stick up on its ends. In any other situation, I would have stood on my tiptoes and affectionately rearranged it for him. This time, I just stood there, in mute terror, as Jasper told me there was something in this situation that had to be "fixed."

"Something has to be fixed?" I'd apparently abandoned calm and had moved onto hysteria.

Jasper looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Of course. I don't want you to worry about a thing," he said, pulling me close to him with a perfunctory affection. Glancing up at his face, I noticed he wasn't even looking at me—well, he might have been looking, but he wasn't seeing. His eyes were lost in plans.

Plans I didn't know or understand. A shaft of nauseous fear lanced through me and I clung hard to Jasper, my hands digging into his shirt.

"What plans?" I insisted with mounting hysteria.

Jasper's eyes refocused on me and he rubbed my arms reassuringly. "Alice, sweetheart, calm down. You're going to upset the baby." One hand reached down and caressed my still-flat stomach.

"I'm going to be gone for maybe an hour," he continued. "I won't be missed, will I?"

I shook my head mutely. I supposed whatever Jasper was planning to do about the baby, I would find out when he returned. He seemed happy enough so I knew at least that he wouldn't leave me or want me to have an abortion. Even though I still knew nothing, I was able to breathe a small sigh of relief as he kissed me quickly and strode out the patio door.

I stayed outside for as long as I could, wrapping Jasper's still-warm tux jacket around me until I felt enveloped in the faint scent of him.

The nameless fear that I'd been carrying around with me since I'd peed on a stick had vanished and now that it was gone, I knew what it had been. I'd been terrified that Jasper would discover, with the new addition to our family, that he didn't love me after all and that the last thing he wanted was to be married to me.

While he hadn't exactly acted as expected, his behavior had still been strange. He'd been angry and hurt, but he hadn't stayed that way. I should be relieved, I told myself, and able to stop worrying.

Just as I was lecturing myself to rejoin the reception, regardless of how little I felt like partying, the patio door opened and I knew before I even turned around it was Rosalie from the sound of her silk dress swishing as she walked towards me.

"Where did Jasper go?" Bella asked and I turned to see my two best friends looking at me with sympathy.

I realized then that they thought he'd left—and not just to do whatever he needed to do, but permanently, once I'd told him about the baby. I could see tears glimmering in Rose's blue eyes and they weren't tears of joy that she'd finally married the man of her dreams. Instead, they were tears of self-reproach and anger that she hadn't let me do this my way and as a result, I'd lost Jasper.

"I told him," I said with a steady calm voice. "He wasn't even too angry. He just said we could 'fix' it."

Bella gasped and I knew immediately what she thought he'd meant. "No, no, no," I insisted, wrapping my arms around Bella. "He didn't mean that. In fact, I'm not sure what he meant. He said he'd be back soon."

"Good," Rose said, adding herself to the group hug, apparently not caring that her silk dress would wrinkle. I was reminded again of all the positive changes in my sister since she'd reunited with Emmett. She'd become softer and kinder and so much happier that sometimes she nearly seemed to glow with it.

"You should come inside," Bella suggested. "It's cold outside and you'll miss Rosalie and Emmett cutting the cake."

I nodded and we walked back inside the ballroom. "Should we delay the cake cutting for Jasper?" Rosalie asked me, but I shook my head. "As long as he gets a piece—that's all he'll care about."

"Okay," she said decisively, and left to find Emmett.

"So you're okay then?" Bella asked again, a note of concern still evident in her voice.

"Yes and no," I sighed. "I just wish Jasper would get back so I could figure out what the heck he's talking about."

"Maybe he told Edward and I could ask him," Bella suggested.

"No, no, no," I insisted. "Besides, I very much doubt he's told Edward."

At that precise moment, Edward came up behind Bella, wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck. He looked up at me, and beamed and I knew in that instant that I'd been so, so wrong. Jasper hadn't wasted any time whatsoever.

"Uh, thanks," I stammered to Edward, who had resumed kissing Bella's neck. I turned and left, sensing they wanted to be alone—probably to discuss their upcoming trip to Italy, which was definitely not what Bella wanted to talk about. No doubt she'd much rather have asked him in a haze of fury, anger and hurt why it was that they'd been together for a blissful twelve months and he hadn't yet proposed.

I sighed and began to circulate like a normal wedding guest. About halfway across the room, I was astounded at how many people offered their congratulations on my pregnancy. Suddenly, the secret that had been just mine only a few hours earlier was common knowledge. Jasper, I thought darkly, had really been busy before he left.

During our five minute conversation, we hadn't exactly discussed how best to tell everyone, but Jasper had obviously decided that he could inform anyone he wanted to—which was apparently the whole damn room. I finally found a corner to hide in that partially blocked me from the interested crowd and decided that I'd stay here until Jasper returned to answer for his actions. I had no desire to continue to receive congratulations for an event that I still considered personal and private.

Just when I'd totally given up on Jasper ever returning and forcing me to spend my best friend's wedding reception hiding in the corner so not a single additional person could congratulate me on my unexpected pregnancy, he appeared in front of me, minus a tuxedo.

"Jasper," I hissed, so nobody would hear and run over, eager to see the scene between the pregnant lady and her recalcitrant fiancé. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Making plans," he hissed back, in an uncanny imitation of my own "angry but trying to talk softly" voice. I knew he thought it was real funny when he smiled at his own joke. On the other hand, the last thing I felt like doing was laughing.

"Could you please tell me why everyone suddenly knows that I'm pregnant?"

"I told them," he said nonchalantly. "Did you not want me to?"

I groaned. "I cannot believe you. You take off without a single word about what exactly you're doing and then before you leave our best friends' wedding reception, you tell the whole damn party that you've impregnated me."

"I'm proud—we're going to have a baby," he shrugged. "I'm sorry you didn't want me to say anything, but the news was just so. . .so great that I couldn't help myself." He smiled again, a bit more self-consciously this time, like he had some sort of inkling what kind of trouble he was in.

But suddenly, I didn't mind so much that the baby was "ours." In fact, I was suddenly proud and downright fucking thrilled that he wanted it just as much as I did that I had to blink away a few tears.

Jasper kneeled next to me and his position reminded me so strongly of his proposal that I was thankful we were almost completely obscured by the towering flower arrangement in the middle that I'd abducted from another part of the reception and strategically placed to give maximum privacy. All we needed was for people to think there was something more interesting going on than a wedding reception. "Babe," he said, looking up at me seriously, "please don't kill me."

"Why would I kill you?" I asked, gaze narrowing and heart beating faster. Had he done something worse than tell all of Rosalie and Emmett's guests that I had a bun in the oven?

"Oh, you might. But then you might be happy too. It's hard to say with you," he confessed and I was sure he was right. The last two months had probably been especially hard on him with me all hormonal and not confiding why my behavior was so erratic. And then there was the small issue of the wedding that wasn't getting planned.

"I know, now," he continued, "why you never wanted to plan the wedding. I thought it might be that you had cold feet about marrying me, but I didn't want to ask you because then . . .then," Jasper paused and cleared his throat and I was touched to see that the corners of his eyes were watery too, "then you might leave me."

I threw my arms around him and he hugged me tightly to him. "Never," I whispered in his ear. "I'll never leave you."

"I'm going to hold you to that. Just remember your promise in the next five minutes."

I pulled back so I could look him straight in the eyes. "Jasper, what have you done?" I asked insistently.

He shrugged a bit too nonchalantly. "You wouldn't plan the wedding . . .so I did."

My jaw dropped. "You planned my wedding?" I shrieked. "In an hour?"

Every head in the reception turned our way. So much for keeping a low profile. I noticed, not with pleasure, that Rosalie was laughing so hard that Emmett had to hold her up.

I supposed that if it wasn't me this was happening to, I might find it funny too. But now, in the middle of the situation, I definitely did not find this very amusing.

"Details," I yelled at Jasper, who was trying to keep a straight face, but was rapidly losing it to a smile that was hovering in the background.

"We're going to elope. In Vegas. At the Venetian. Our plane leaves in two hours. I've packed our bags—I really, really hope I got everything you would need, but I figured if I missed something, we can always get it there."

My gaze narrowed. Of all the places I'd ever imagined getting married, Las Vegas had not even made the top one hundred. But I supposed with the time rapidly approaching when my pregnancy would show, this plan wasn't all bad. Not that I was going to let Jasper off the hook. Not that I was going to tell him that my heart, despite all those silly foolish plans of a fairy tale wedding, was singing with joy that we'd be married so soon and that it had all been his idea. Plus, he had picked the Venetian—not something cheesy or tacky like Treasure Island or the drive-thru wedding chapel.

And then the white hot, purifying truth hit me. There were so many romantic gestures that Jasper could have planned to prove to me once and for all that he was sticking, but this eclipsed them all. And then suddenly I didn't care about pseudo-punishing him for planning my own wedding. Suddenly, I understand why Rosalie hadn't cared as much about her own wedding as I thought she would. When you were going to spend the rest of your life with the man of your dreams, how you got married felt like very small beans.

I stood up and jerked Jasper up from his knees by his hands. "Let's go," I told him, smiling, and not even bothering to wipe away the tears of happiness that were trickling down my cheeks. "We've got a plane to catch."

AN: Last chapter will be Edward and Bella--obviously. That one should be a lot easier *crosses fingers*