"But," Bella blurted out, definitely breathing too fast now, "but you said the test was clear—you said—"

"It was," Carlisle said. Then he looked at Edward, and Bella, and raised his eyebrows. There were questions you just didn't ask a pregnant woman in the presence of her husband. Vampire or otherwise.

"It's not Jacob's," Edward said, his eyebrows working together, pulled by the ridged flex of his forehead.

Bella looked at Edward. "Is that—is that even possible?" She turned from Edward to Carlisle.

Edward looked at his father, shaking his head at the indecent question Carlisle had been silenting mulling over.

"I need to run some more tests," Carlisle said. He'd never thought it could be. Ever.

But here they were. With her pregnant. And not by Jacob.

"I thought Vampires couldn't—"

"We all did," Carlisle murmured.

Then Edward asked Carlisle a question, with the only words recognizable to Bella, being "could it be" and "if". Carlisle responded in this vein, and the conversation continued, every glob of consonanted vowel unfamiliar. They spoke in English, but the words were issued with such rapidity, she could barely grasp at even their basic forms.

After a few minutes, she put up her hand. "Please stop."

They both turned to look at her.

"What are you talking about?"

Edward still looked like he had solidified, face taut with worry—or something else.

"How much do you know about genetics?" Carlisle asked.

"The very basics."

Nodding, Carlisle thought for a moment. "You remember why I wanted to test your blood before?"

"Yes." She felt a shiver ripple up her spine.

Edward seemed to become even more tense, turning away, moving to the window again, hands braced on the counter.

She held back the pained transformation that wanted to sprawl over her own face.

"Humans have twenty-three pairs of Chromosomes. Vampires have twenty-five."

"OK." She was trying to ascertain the significance of these numbers.

"We're not genetically compatible. Theoretically. But," here he paused, knowing what he was unleashing, "werewolves have twenty-four."

"And?"

"With any pregnancy, genetic material passes both ways through placenta."

"In the blood," she nodded, "which is why you wanted to make sure it was all gone." This made sense. Why did it matter now?

"It never leaves, Bella. It becomes part of the mother. It alters them. Permanently."

The words hit her like a punch to the gut, and she turned, aiming towards the waste-paper basket, body rejecting the remains of her last meal.

When the final spasms passed, she wiped her shaking sleeve across her mouth. "Never?"

"No," Carlisle said, moving his gaze briefly to Edward, who remained rigidly planted by the window.

The tears were moving freely now.

No wonder Edward didn't want to touch her. She barely wanted to be in her own skin.

"I think," Carlisle went on, wishing Edward would come back to his wife, "that this change made you...compatible."

She didn't even say anything, but walked, then ran. Down the stairs, out the front door. Slipping on the gravel, she recovered and made her way down to the river, breaths coming fast and angry.

At the water's edge, she found the largest stones she could handle, and began hurling them in.

The river wasn't wide, and as she chucked the stones there, some glanced off trees, making small but satisfying divets in their bark. It wasn't enough though, and the frustrated sobs made throwing them harder.

"Want a hand with that?" Emmett's voice called.

"Sure," she said, rubbing her face into her shoulder.

He picked up a turkey-sized stone, and threw it so that one of the small alders across the water exploded.

"That more what you're looking for?" he asked.

She nodded, picking up another hand-sized rock and over-arming it into the water, short of her own target.

"Want me to destroy anything else?"

She was getting tired, the anger waning, and the other, unwanted feelings slicking up over her.

Shaking her head, she sat down, and welded her hands to her face, feeling hot tears try to slide them apart.

Emmett sat down beside her, graceful for all his bulk. He tested a solid hand on her back. "I heard," he said. "Do you want me to go get Edward?"

"No." It was huffed out angrily.

Emmett frowned. "Any reason why?"

She made a derisive "tch" in her throat. "Did you hear Carlisle, Emmett?"

"Yup."

"I barely want to be around myself. I doubt he wants to be anywhere near me right now."

"What?"

She stood up, shaking out her hands. It made her arm sting. A welcome distraction from everything else. "Ugh—he's part of me, Emmett." She shuddered, and continued to shake out her hands, and as she came close to the trees, went to fling her palms into them in frustration.

Emmett saw the movement, and managed to intercept the collision, pushing her hands back before she could hurt them.

"Don't!" she yelled. More than anything, she wanted to find some expedient way to destroy some of herself, bodily eliminating every touch of Jacob's presence.

She turned, her thoughts distorted but purposeful, and made a quicker sprint than Emmett expected towards the outcropping that would give her enough leverage to jump into the river's cold depths.

He caught her, trying to gently contain her movements.

Rose was there, her hands at Bella's cheeks.

"No way," she said, "things are crappy right now, but this is not the answer. Come on," she soothed, "let's go see John, OK?"

"AND WHAT?" Bella shrieked, struggling out of their loose hands. "TELL HIM I'M PREGNANT? WITH A VAMPIRE'S BABY BECAUSE MY WEREWOLF RAPIST IS STILL INSIDE ME? FOREVER?"

"Bella," Rose said softly, "just think about the first part of that."

Bella had. Her face collapsed. "You didn't see how he looked, Rose." The tears exploded again, and she sank down, hands into the dirt.

"No," she admitted, "I didn't." She had a lot of thoughts about Edward right now, and not many of them were complimentary. Neither were her sub-audible words. Fortunately for Bella, she couldn't hear them.

But everyone else could.

They could also hear Carlisle's urgent murmurings, trying to counteract the horrified stream of self-recriminations that Edward was working through.

"She's well, Edward. You saw yourself—"

"For how long, Carlisle? With what I've done. God—he raped her. And I've planted a monster inside of her. How could I be so stupid—"

"ENOUGH!" Carlisle finally hissed. "She's distraught. Have you even heard what she's been saying?"

He hadn't.

Carlisle playing it back in his thoughts didn't help him at all.

Before he could bolt towards Bella, Carlisle grabbed his arm. "She loves you, Edward. She wants you. And right now, she needs your reassurance, not your worry or your fear."

He was vibrating with his own distress, and now the knowledge that he'd hurt Bella, nodding mindlessly, pulling his arm away.

Carlisle let go, calling out to Emmett and Rose to give them some space.

"Bella?" he called to her, closing the gap. She'd sat again, knees in her chest. "I'm so sorry—I was just...shocked. I wasn't thinking clearly."

She shook her head, saying nothing, head still down.

He slid his arm around her, sitting down beside her.

"I love you," he whispered.

"Did you know, before we got here?" she asked abruptly.

"No." It was half the truth.

"At all?"

"I wondered," he admitted. "When I felt your ribs. Pregnancy can accelerate healing. I wasn't sure if we'd missed something. I didn't want to alarm you needlessly."

"OK." She slid her hand into his. "It's ours," she said, "I've been trying to tell myself that—that it's ours, but—" she shuddered. "I just—". She was teetering between the wonder of what they'd made, and the horror of how she'd been so transformed.

It was like a teeter-totter from hell, and it made her want to vomit all over again.

"It's OK," Edward said. They were fully wrapped in each other's arms now. "I won't let it hurt you. We'll find a way to get it out."

What?

Her arms dropped. "I know it—but— you can't—"

Her words barely registered with Edward. "Carlisle can find a way. I'll make sure you're safe."

"NO!" she said. "Absolutely not!"

"Bella," he began carefully. "It's—we don't know what it is."

"Yes, we do. It's ours."

"Bella—"

"Ours."

He breathed in, and then let it out slowly.

She needed him, Carlisle had said, and he would be there for her. They could talk tomorrow. He needed to simply be there right now. It could wait.

He hoped it could wait.

"Come inside," he said, mindful she'd been ill. Had too many shocks. She didn't resist when he picked her up, resting his lips against her neck in a soft kiss.

Someone—Esme, he realized, had left a tray of drinks and snacks on the small table in their room. He called out a soft thanks.

"You should have something," he murmured, feeling the tremble in her hands.

"No," she whispered back. "Just you." Her face was turned in to his chest.

When they came to rest on the bed, she turned up to him, finding her target in his lips.

He became very still.

And so did she.

"What?" she whispered, the intonation stretching up, fragile and uncertain at the end.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head, making himself relax.

He could hardly do more harm by giving her what she wanted.

Of course, then, he considered if he could. Could he?

"Edward?" She was barely audible now, gripped by so many rich fears. After a moment, she said, "it's OK. I understand if you don't want—me. It's—I get it."

He didn't though. "What are you talking about?"

The revulsion made her stomach clench again.

"He's part of me," she said. Then she shuddered visibly.

He understood. "No," he said simply, pulling her back to him. "You're you. We're us. That is nothing—simply genetics. I'm—I'm afraid, Bella. Of what I've done."

He'd put a monster inside his wife. Lusted after something he never had a right to, and let his evil nature breed inside her. What else would come of this?

"You've helped me. Made me better."

He wouldn't speak aloud what he thought of his actions.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too." His forehead wrinkled, and this time their lips met halfway, the need for the other ripe and palpable.

There weren't many words after that, but the snap of buttons undone, and the whisper of zippers loosened.

This time, he waited on her, hands matched to her movements, and she clung desperately to him, wanting to banish every last vestige of what Jacob had done.

But she couldn't, and neither could Edward, and when she began to cry, small sounds that bubbled into wild clutching sobs, she wouldn't let him stop, hands straining for purchase in his shoulders. "Don't," she said, "don't stop."

He did, though, pulling her to him, wrapping her in a blanket, wishing he could join her, and make his own purging tears.