Author's Note:

So now you know, Bella is pregnant.

This is where things begin a kind of AU turn. While I enjoyed SM's version- considering how epic Edward and Bella are, I was always saddened that Bella never got to experience a normal human pregnancy and that EB never got to experience the full 18 years of raising a child.

I don't have kids of my own but I've been doing the research so I see the amazement and the wonder and beauty of pregnancy from both a scientific and a nature standpoint.

So in this version, my version, Bella does get to experience a normal human pregnancy with a gestation of 9 months. Bella does not grow weaker or crave blood. And when she does give birth it can be either by c-section or vaginally.

Then the hybrid lives a normal human life and stops growing at age 18 when it reaches maturity. The rest is like SM's version where a hybrid male is venomous but a hybrid female is not. They can survive on human food or blood and their skin doesn't sparkle like a traditional vampire's so they can go out in the sun without it being an issue.

4. Changes

I don't know how long I sat on the chair near my window. It felt like days, months even but had that been the case I certainly would have noticed. What had felt like months was only a matter of hours; Einstein's theory of relativity and all that. Time is relative to the velocity of the observer. Where months could be felt like seconds and a short time could actually be a long one.

The one word kept shouting in my ear.

Pregnant.

How the hell was that even possible? The only person I'd had sex with was a vampire. And the worst part was that I was alone. There was no one I could turn to. No human, no vampires, no one. I was lost and that above else was the worst part.

A week had gone by and as I looked at myself in the mirror I was shocked to see the bump on my abdomen rounded and defined.

I hadn't been the only one to notice this week. Jessica continued to blabber about her rumor that I was pregnant and when Mike or Angela or even Charlie had asked, Charlie more so about the weight gain, I didn't even know if he had heard the rumor and quite frankly didn't want to, I did my best to convince them that I had gotten my appetite back and was over the depression. Charlie seemed to buy it for the time being; the others not so much.

Staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, it seemed impossible that I could be showing this early. If my math was correct, and I was certain it was, I was now going on my 8th week. I didn't know anything about pregnancy but I was fairly certain that I wouldn't be showing this much, at the very least the bump should have been smaller, at least I would think so but not this; not the look of someone who was two months pregnant. Heck I shouldn't even be pregnant but I was.

I lifted my shirt up to reveal the skin. I needed proof that this was real and that my clothes weren't just baggy, despite the positive results I'd gotten from the pregnancy tests. Since finding out I was pregnant I had been cautious not to touch my abdomen, some part of me not wanting to believe it was real but now as I stood here, my belly exposed, I could no longer deny its existence. I touched it. The skin felt hard like a hockey puck, slight evidence that he had been there inside of me. I then rubbed my hands up and down my belly getting used to the feel and then I instinctively brought my left hand to the crease where my belly met the cloth of my jeans. My right hand rested on the top portion of my belly. I stood there now, literally holding my baby in my hands.

Though he had left a part of himself inside me, though he was gone and not coming back and though this would always be a reminder of him in my life after he swore there would be no trace of ever being here, I knew for certain that I wanted this baby. The pain of losing him I could find a way to deal with. I could not stand to get rid of the one precious thing he had left me with.

As I marveled at this moment I could hear Charlie arguing downstairs on the phone with Billy Black. The arguing took me out of my precious moment. Though I still cradled my baby I was brought back to the present. I had not talked to Jacob like I told Charlie I would. Every time he asked the best excuse I could come up with was that I just hadn't gotten around to it. It was lame and Charlie knew it. Other than school there hadn't been much else I was doing.

This week though Charlie didn't seem to mind so much. He was furious with Billy. Apparently Jacob had come down with some kind of virus or disease and Billy was handling it on the reservation instead of taking him to the hospital.

Charlie slammed the phone on its cradle. The moment I had suddenly gone.

I released my shirt letting it take shape over my newly grown pouch and made my way downstairs, cautious with each step, where I found Charlie leaning against the wall seeming defeated.

"Oh hey Bells," he said to me when he looked up.

"How's Jacob," I asked knowing his answer from his heated conversation a second ago.

"Don't know. Been friends with that man since I was a kid and after all this time it still feels like there are things he's keeping from me. Not even Harry will tell me anything. Claims there's nothing to know."

Thinking on Charlie's words, something inside suddenly clicked: a memory of walking on the beach in La Push with Jacob by my side, telling me the legends of the cold ones but there had been more to his story about how the cold ones had made a treaty with his great-grandfather. Going further into the memory, I now remembered that Jacob had said the Quileute's had been descendants of real wolves. If that were true then that would have made them- Was such a thing even possible?"

I glanced down at my belly, careful too not draw attention to it. Of course it was possible. I lived in a world where vampires existed, where now he had lived up to the mythology of the incubus. If those mythologies were true then couldn't the others have been as well?

"Hey dad, you think I could get out of the house for a while to go see Jake?"

"Billy's made it adamant that he doesn't want Jacob to have any visitors Bells."

"I know and I want to respect that but dad I haven't seen him in a while. Look if he still doesn't want to see me then I'll just come back home."

"Straight home right?"

"Yes."

"All right go but Bella, be careful please."

I nodded. My keys all ready in my pocket I made my way to the door, took my jacket and then left the house.

I didn't know what awaited me down the road but I had to know and regardless of the fated mythologies that had long ago been formed between vampire and werewolf and with me carrying the child of a vampire, I needed Jacob. I needed my best friend.