A/N: Hi, everyone! Mwah!

Edward's petite little wife had a fantastically strong grip, as he was coming to find out. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from flinching, and stroked her clammy cheek gently.

Bella released the breath she'd been holding and fell back against the pillows again, panting.

"It's been too long since Alice has gone," Esme murmured from the other side of the bed.

She was right. Edward had thought his sister gone too long many eons ago, but his mother had calmed him, reminding him that Dr. Gerandy had other duties and more to care for than Bella. It could be Alice was waiting while he set a bone or stitched a wound. Or perhaps he'd had to go out far and Alice had to go after him.

But it had been hours, and she still wasn't returned.

"Too hell with the doctor," Bella grumbled. "It's hot. It's too hot."

"Bella-" Edward began but stopped when she turned to him with a livid glare.

"You!" she cried pointing a finger at him. "I don't even want to hear your voice right now!"

Edward pressed his lips together. If he wasn't scared half out of his wits, if she didn't look so entirely pale and exhausted - drenched with sweat from the unforgiving heat and hours of effort - her little outburst might have been funny. But Edward knew his wife well. She wasn't angry. She was in too much pain, and he could see the utter terror in her eyes. Her anger was a cover. She was trying not to scream, trying not to whimper.

"Don't worry, love," he said as soothingly as possible. "The doctor will be here soon, and he is sure to throw me out of the room, far away from you."

Her eyes went wide, making her look almost childlike. "You can't leave me," she said in a small voice. "Please don't leave me. Don't."

"I-I... I won't. I promise. The doctor can be scandalized, but I'd like to see him try and make me leave your side."

Esme chuckled lightly. "Carlisle said much the same thing to Dr. Gerandy when Alice was born," she said quietly.

"And?" Edward prompted, needing the distraction.

"Dr. Gerandy wouldn't stand for it. He threatened to leave. Carlisle pointed out that he himself was a doctor. Dr. Gerandy said, 'Not today. Today you are a father, and you're in the way.'"

Bella groaned and sighed. "I knew I hated him."

Only some minutes later there was a commotion downstairs. Edward was never so glad to hear his sister's voice calling his name.

He squeezed Bella's hand and pressed a long, firm kiss to her forehead. "The doctor will be able to help you. He'll give you something for the pain, I promise," he said fervently. He kissed her forehead again. "I love you so much, Bella."

"Bring me the doctor, and I will think about whether or not I love you," she said, irritable again.

"Quick now," Esme said gently, but there was a tightness about her eyes.

She'd been trying to keep it from both of them, but he had the horrible feeling his mother believed the baby was distressed. What had she said? The baby wasn't turned correctly? Edward had no earthly idea what that meant, but if his mother was worried, it couldn't be good.

He darted from the room at full speed.

"Dr. Gerandy! Alice, I-"

He skittered to a halt at the top of the stairs, his mind not quite quick enough to grasp the scene before him.

Alice stood at the bottom of the stairs. Her face was bloodied, her clothing and hair bedraggled, and she swayed as if she was only barely conscious.

Behind her stood not the doctor, but James Hunter.

~0~

For most soldiers during the war, killing was a duty they performed because they had no other choice. This was what it meant to fight for their country, their way of life. They followed their orders. They killed so they would not be killed.

Occasionally, there would be a soldier who thought war gave them rights to be uncivilized, like the man who had raped and murdered Jasper's wife, and the man who'd killed Edward's father. Men like that existed when given the opportunity.

Edward strongly suspected that James had been one of those men. His sense of entitlement had overwritten kindness and propriety with his own wife; Edward had no doubt he'd likely raped and robbed his way through every Southern town he visited.

But now, James was more dangerous than even that.

Edward recognized the glint of madness, the edge of mania amidst the malevolence of James's unwavering, unforgiving glare.

Worse, weeks of constant rejection by his peers, the same who had sung his praises not so long before, had worked him into a frenzy. The anger of a man whose life had been completely destroyed was a dangerous thing. Most others would have retreated back to Virginia with their tails between their legs to lick their wounds and rebuild their lives. James was stubbornly holding on to the life he wanted, the life that he could no longer have.

He was a man with nothing left to lose.

And only Edward to blame.

So far, though, James's aim seemed to be off. He'd found Alice before Alice found the doctor. He'd dragged her off and beaten her. If Edward was reading between the lines correctly, James had been near enough to taking Alice's virtue before she finally blurted out why she'd been out and about without an escort, switching the madman's target from his sister to his wife.

It seemed James had figured out that the best way to hurt Edward was to go straight for his family.

His own voice came back to haunt him, recalling the words he'd spoken to his brother months ago. It's an empty threat, Emmett. What can he do to our family?

What indeed.

Edward swallowed hard, trying to contain the fury that had his body on edge, tensed and coiled, waiting for the chance to strike. His muscles ached from being held so tightly in the same position. James had him sitting on his hands while his wife labored upstairs with only his mother to attend her. It had been an hour, but it felt, to Edward, closer to a lifetime.

Again, Edward impotently wished his father was alive.

"I am begging you," he said lowly, looking up at James in a distinctively submissive fashion. "Your quarrel is with me. My wife, my child, needn't suffer in my stead. Let me get the doctor, and you can do what you will with me."

James scoffed, the pistol ever steady in his hand. "What a hypocrite you are. Did you think of my wife, my children, before you smeared our family's name with your pathetic lies."

Edward bristled, biting back the insult that rose to his tongue. He wanted to ask James if he'd thought of his own family, wanted to call him out as a liar, but it would do no good. "I did think of your family," he said honestly. "I've told you, I'm sorry for letting the article run. I should have had the facts verified more carefully, but you must admit, this is not the same situation! This is not an eye for an eye. My wife is struggling with this birth, and I fear for her life, my unborn son's life, if a doctor does not accompany her!"

At that, James's answering smile was maddeningly satisfying. Edward had never struggled so hard to keep calm.

In his head, he imagined ripping James to pieces with his bare hands.

Edward had killed many men, but he'd never wanted to murder someone before.

"Oh, I think this is an eye for an eye, Cullen," James said, his voice eerily smooth and steady. "See, I suppose I'm just not as clever as you are. I can't cook up some scheme that makes you look worse than you make yourself look." He scoffed. "Housing for the filth that bring our proud city down. Putting that Southern hillbilly in charge of good, Northern men.

"And yet, you have people calling my morals, my actions into judgement?" He shook his head, raising his pistol level with Edward's chest. "You are an abomination. If your child dies, it would only be God ridding the Earth of the Cullens, one member at a time."

Edward's fingers dug into the sofa cushion, and he breathed hard, reminding himself over and over that getting himself shot would leave no one to defend the women in the house. Right then, James knew the most pain he could inflict on Edward was making him sit helpless while Bella suffered upstairs. If Edward was dead, he sincerely doubted James's anger would be sated.

"Then let me go to her at least," he pleaded. "Let me comfort her or help my mother. My mother is not so young that she should be going up and down the stairs for fresh water."

James's lip curled in disgust. "Only you would think it acceptable for a man to be in the birthing room."

"Then let me help them."

James's head turned to the entryway where Alice now stood, leaning heavily against the wall. Her eyes were more focused, though she looked disheveled. She'd been laying down in the sitting room - where the windows were faced as such she could not be seen from the street.

"My mother is an old woman who has not approved of either of my brothers' behavior," she lied smoothly. "Let me at least fetch things for her. I won't be much help, having birthed no children of my own, but I can save my mother the aches and pains at least."

Taking advantage of the distraction Alice provided, Edward prepared to spring, his eyes on James's now more relaxed pistol hand. No sooner did he brace himself than James stood, pointing the pistol instead at Alice. Edward froze, and the blond man turned to him and smirked before he walked toward Alice slowly.

Edward could see Alice was shaking, though she was trying not to show her terror. She stood her ground as James approached though she did push herself as flat against the wall as she could possibly get. Edward's heart sped painfully and his stomach lurched. Fury and fear made a lump in his throat that was impossible to swallow around. "You stay away from her!" he snarled, jumping to his feet.

Quickly, James put the barrel of the pistol to Alice's throat. She whimpered but didn't move or cry out. "Take a step forward, Cullen, and you'll be responsible for your pretty little sister's death." As he spoke, he didn't take his eyes off Alice. His voice was so light and easy they could have been discussing the weather.

Edward froze, his chest heaving with barely contained rage. His eyes must have been murderous.

"Now listen close, puss," he said to Alice, stroking her bruised cheek gently with the back of his hand. It was a lover's caress, and Alice's expression, the way she turned her head to the side, indicated she was repulsed. "You may go up and attend your sister, but you step even a toe out of line..." He pressed himself against her then, and Alice did cry out, but he only put his lips near her ear, whispering something that made her shake.

"Get your hands off her, you snake!" Edward demanded, his feet planted firmly in place.

In response, James moved his hand to Alice's neck and squeezed. Alice's gasp turned into a strangled wheeze. "Keep talking, Cullen," he said calmly, still not looking at him.

Edward held his hands out. His eyes, wide and struck, went to his sister's.

I'm sorry, he thought. I'm so, so sorry.

His hand still clenched around her neck, James yanked Alice away from the wall, throwing her down in the direction of the stairs. She coughed and sputtered, her hand to her throat, and James leveled the pistol at Edward again, still grinning down with malevolent glee.

When Alice's eyes met his, Edward quickly curled his hand, making his fingers into a gun. He 'shot' once so she would understand and pointed upstairs.

There was a pistol in his room. Bella knew where it was. If Alice could get it to him...

"Go," James said to Alice. "But remember what I said."

Alice glared but stumbled to her feet, scampering up the stairs as fast as her battered body could get her.

James chuffed. "If you were any kind of brother at all, you'd have picked up where your father so obviously failed and taught your sister about her place in this world. She's a willful little thing, and that beating I gave her didn't do near enough good."

Edward ground his teeth but dared not say anything.

"Sit down," James said, his tone almost solicitous. He gestured with the pistol. "We may as well get comfortable."

~0~

Another hour, maybe more, went by when a distinct wail of terrible pain reached their ears.

Edward threaded his hands back into his hair, grabbing fistfuls and yanking as his shoulders slumped. It was perfect torture, and James's maddening chuckle revealed just how much he was reveling in causing Edward so much pain.

He'd tried bargaining, but at that point, there was nothing James wanted as much as to see Edward Cullen suffering.

He was getting his wish.

"I'll give you this much: she doesn't carry on as much as Victoria did," James said conversationally.

His ongoing conversation was just another part of the torture and very effective as well. Edward was near enough to ripping his own ears off so he wouldn't have to hear the man's almost pleasant tone. He hadn't so much as raised his voice as he berated Edward's parents for raising children who were so obviously vile. He called Edward a coward and insinuated his wife was no more than a Southern whore.

Edward had no choice but to take it.

He'd never felt so helpless in his life, had never felt an anger so powerful he felt as though the entire house might burst into flames with the strength of the heat the roiled off his skin in waves.

And holy God, he was so very frightened. He was terrified he would never get to hold his wife in his arms again.

Outside the windows, the blackest part of night was falling.

"I never had patience for the weeping of women," James said. "I wasn't there when Bree was born, thank God, but when Riley came, I thought it was the best time to go hunting." He laughed.

Edward looked up to cast yet another impotent glare in James's direction, when something caught his eye.

Alice was creeping down the stairs quietly, one by one, his pistol in her hand. It was cocked.

Edward's heart sped to a gallop. He wondered if there was any way to signal to his sister that she should find a way to get the gun to him. Did Alice even know how to shoot the thing?

Well, she'd obviously known enough to load it.

His heart leapt into his throat when the stairs creaked in protest just as she got to the bottom, and James turned his head. Alice only barely hid the pistol behind her back in time.

She cleared her throat. "Mother needs more hot water."

James grunted. "Hurry up, then."

When he turned back to Edward, Alice's expression became one so fierce, Edward was startled. She raised the pistol.

The shot caught James right through the neck, the kickback sending Alice flying back onto her rear end. There was a bloom of blood, and James clapped his hand over his throat. The wet sounds of his gagging immediately filled the room.

Edward saw fury replace surprise in James's eyes, and he raised his pistol. But Edward was quicker. He flew forward, grabbing James's arm and twisting with all the anger of the last horrible hours of his life. The crack of his bone snapping was audible, and his scream muffled by the blood filling his mouth. His pistol dropped to the floor with a loud clatter, and James fell to his knees with it.

"Give the devil my regards," Edward snarled and punched the blond man square in the face.

Kicking the gun across the room, Edward didn't wait to hear James's final, gagging breath. Now that his body was in motion, he couldn't stop, not until he was sure his wife was safe.

"Edward? Alice?"

Esme was at the top of the stairs, her hands gripped around the banister, her face ashen.

"We're fine, Mother. Please. Go back to Bella!" Edward called, kneeling at his sister's side.

Alice was bone pale, her eyes stuck on body in the sitting room. "Oh God. Oh God," she chanted under her breath.

"Alice?" Edward caught her face between his hands, trying to be gentle despite the adrenaline that made him feel powerful enough to uproot trees. "Alice, I need you to calm down. Calm down, little sister. It's fine. You did the right thing, I promise you. Look at me. Look at me!"

She did finally, blinking as if coming out of a trance.

"Please. I need you to get back to Bella. I need to find the doctor. Can you do that? Please?"

Another scream from upstairs, and Edward felt a sob rise. He ached to go to her, he ached to make it better. But he knew her best bet would be if he could find the doctor, and there was no time left to waste.

Alice swallowed hard and nodded. "Go." Her voice was barely a whisper.

Edward flew out into the night, running toward the stables as fast as his legs could carry him.

~0~

Dr. Gerandy had slammed the door in his face.

Edward had exactly one glimpse of his wife - good God, she looked so tiny and utterly exhausted and as pale as death itself - before Dr. Gerandy shoved him out the door and slammed the door in his face.

No matter that Edward had pounded, the doctor could not be swayed.

So Edward sunk to his knees, his hands splayed flat against the door. There were a great many things he could have been doing, given that there was a body lying in a wide pool of blood in his sitting room, but he found himself utterly unable to move.

As it was, he could hardly breathe.

"Push, Mrs. Cullen," he heard the doctor order.

"Bella, dear." His mother's voice was so gentle but urgent. "I know you're tired. It's almost over. Baby Charles is almost here. Push."

It frightened Edward to no end that Bella wasn't even trying to hold back her anguish anymore. She cried out, the sound long and low, and Edward thought for sure he could feel a piece of his soul curdle and die inside him.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, none of this should have happened. Not like this.

Emmett had promised he would be there. He'd promised to get Edward shout at the moon drunk. Jasper had said he'd help. Bella would have the doctor with her through the whole process, and more women than just his mother and sister to help her. Rosalie would have helped, would have talked her through the worst of the pains.

"I can't live without her," Edward whispered to whatever Gods might be listening. "Please. I can't."

"That's it. One more push, Mrs. Cullen," the doctor said.

Bella gave a final cry and then the night was, for the first time, still.

Edward couldn't breathe.

When he heard a loud, furious wail - the unmistakable sound of a newborn being thrust into the world - he gasped. His breaths came fast and furious, his heart hammering against his chest, but as the baby continued to cry, he couldn't help his smile.

He was a father. Good God, he was a father.

Perhaps a minute passed before the door opened just a crack. His mother looked very tired but her eyes were shining. "It's a girl," she said softly. "She's perfect."

"A girl," he repeated with reverence, a feeling of awe unlike any he'd ever known filling him. He stood on trembling legs, having to brace his hand against the wall to hold himself up. "And Bella?" he asked desperately.

But he could hear her. He could hear her soft weeping - not of sorrow, but of joy.

"Edward, they're going to be fine. Sit before you fall, and I will bring you your daughter when she's clean."

The door closed again, and Edward stumbled backward, crumbling into the chair that sat in the hallway. He didn't realize how badly he was shaking before he put his hands to his eyes, unable to control the torrent of tears that hit him with the force of a gale-wind storm.

How close had he come to losing everything?

How close had he come to not living to see his child born?

By the time the door opened again, the worst of his tears had subsided. He felt somewhat foolish, weeping like a little girl, but his embarrassment was swept away like dust in the wind when his eyes fell on the swaddled bundle in Esme's arms.

Again, Edward couldn't breathe. His body was rigid, his eyes riveted as his mother brought his daughter closer.

The bundle fussed, and Esme shushed her quietly. "Hush, hush, little one. Come meet your Papa."

Papa.

The word made Edward feel like he was flying.

Carefully, Esme placed the baby in his arms, and Edward looked at his daughter for the first time.

Pink shell lips, cloudy blue eyes. She was unbearably exquisite despite the angry red tint of her skin, fresh from birth, and the wrinkle of the womb. Edward was instantly breathless and endlessly, utterly in love. "Hello, little girl," he whispered, rocking her slightly. "Hello, my precious little love."

A/N: So you got another chapter out of me. *dramatic sigh*

Many thanks to shug for beta and to baburella and jfka06 for making my docs… a hilarious place to be.

I am participating in a pledge-a-thon. For $5 you can receive a private outtake from me. I'll also be doing a live chat/interview on June 30. It's for a great cause and I'm quite proud to be a part of it. Find out more here: bit . ly/ptblkris