Carlisle was waiting for me in his office. "Edward should be back soon," he said. "He was extremely alarmed to miss your calls. Would you like to defer this until he returns?"

I shook my head. My eyes were puffy and dehydrated, but Carlisle said nothing about it. "Might as well get on with it," I said wearily, stepping onto the scale. I'd gained another two pounds overnight.

Carlisle took another ultrasound and measured the amniotic sac. I stared at the little white football and tried to steady my breathing. Don't transfer your stress to him, I instructed myself. Worry about Cedarwood Mobile Home Park later. Worry about Masen now. More than enough worry to be getting on with.

"My goodness," Carlisle said. "We're seeing significant growth here. Although you are only approximately three and a half weeks along, the amniotic sac is as enlarged as it might be in a woman four months into her pregnancy. Welcome to your second trimester, Bella."

"Great," I said. "I thought I had a little more time, at least. I'm already showing some. When does some become a lot? I'm going to have to tell Charlie something. I mean, explaining that I got knocked up is one thing, but how am I supposed to explain how fast it's going?"

"Well, I don't know about that," said Carlisle, "but it is becoming increasingly clear to me that you will not be able to carry out the normal activities of your life as this pregnancy progresses. You have some time, of course, but not much. There is simply too much uncertainty, too much at stake, for you to take even the most minimal risks. Try to avoid any form of emotional upset; avoid red meat and caffeine from now on; eat nothing processed or overly sugary. You should avoid driving as much as possible, and I would like to examine you every day if you are able to make the journey over here. If you feel you can't, I or Rosalie can visit you in your home, just to keep an eye on the baby's heartbeat. There may come a time when you need continuous access to more thorough care than you can receive in your home."

"Okay," I said resignedly. "Anything else?"

"There is one more thing," said Carlisle. "I'm sure Edward has already brought this up, but it would be inadvisable for you to spend too much time in close proximity with a werewolf until—"

"I know, I know," I said. "Volatile creatures. Got it."

"It's not that," said Carlisle. "It's partly that, of course, but my chief concern has to do with what Rosalie told me of your altercation with Jacob Black. I don't know what it was about, but I do know that indigestion does not take the form of uterine cramps. I believe it is possible that the fetus was disturbed by something and became fussy, due either to Jacob's voice raised in anger or to your own emotional response. He is more than strong enough already to cause you internal pain if he becomes too active. He can't break through the amniotic sac, but it is flexible, not rigid. It won't protect you from all of his movements."

"Maybe it wasn't the steak at all," I said. "It would sort of make sense, in a way. I mean, the part about being upset when Jake's upset. The grasshopper seems to like Jake. Maybe he knows they're cousins...distantly, anyway."

"Well, if you insist on spending more time in Jacob's company, please take care to remain calm. Last night it was spasms; in a week it might be something much worse."

"I'll be careful," I promised.

Edward returned home soon after that. He came to me at once, his face tight with worry. "Bella, I'm so sorry I couldn't pick up, I don't know what I was thinking going out of reach like that. What happened?"

"Oh, nothing," I said. "I had some cramps last night and I freaked out. I was trying to tell Jake about Masen—"

"'Masen'?" repeated Edward.

"Masen Swan," I said. "The grasshopper. What do you think?"

Edward's face bloomed into a pleased smile that went a long way toward comforting me. "I think that's a wonderful name," he said.

"You can pick out a middle name if you want," I added. "I didn't mean to be greedy, picking out the whole name without you."

"You have to haul him around all the time," he said, "so it's only fair that you should pick the first name. As for middle names...let me think." He sat beside me on the couch and cuddled close. "What about...Carl? For both his grandfathers. Or is that too old-fashioned? Do you think he'll get sick of being named after so many people?"

"Masen Carl Swan," I said, trying it out. "It has a nice ring. And I think Carl is different enough from Charlie and Carlisle not to be too obvious. Why don't we sleep on it? Whoops—I mean I'll sleep on it, and you can meditate on it."

"You know," Edward pointed out, "he could turn out to be a she."

"Well, Carl's easy to turn feminine. I've always liked the name Charlotte."

"And for a first name?"

I shrugged. "I'll think about it. For now, there are more pressing problems." I handed him the envelope, but he didn't look inside.

"How many?" he asked, testing the envelope's thickness. He knew it was more than six. And six had seemed like such a lot at the time!

"Eleven," I whispered. "Some were little kids."

"Come on," he said. "Let's go bring it to my mom."

"I feel terrible putting this burden on her," I said, following him down the hall toward the front yard where Esme was prepping the garden for eventual spring.

"Trust me," said Edward, "Mom's tougher than she looks. We're all working on it, anyway. Next time Alice calls, we'll have her check in on Victoria's future. But we haven't heard from her since this started and I have no idea when she'll be able to call, so until then we just have to use what we have."

"And what's that, exactly?" I asked.

Edward answered, smiling grimly.

"We have Esme."

The next week passed alarmingly fast. I gained at least a pound a day, and soon I had to start thinking seriously about how to conceal my belly. Luckily it was common for me to wear bulky sweaters all winter, but Jessica would be sure to notice how much they were starting to bulge over my jeans. In fact, I was going to need more jeans soon anyway. Jessica would definitely notice that. She was always my jeans-shopping partner, and I was hers. She'd be suspicious if I went without her, but I couldn't go with her. It seemed like such a small thing to worry about, but perspective was hard to come by these days.

On Thursday, there was another visit from Bree. This time, perhaps worried that I would try to get her to come home with me again, she didn't stick around longer than it took to hand off the envelope and depart. Victoria had elected to use a large manila envelope, instead of the letter-sized ones she's used before. Tamara Jones, it was plain to see, had been but an appetizer. I didn't look at it, but I did ask Esme for the numbers so at least I would know.

Eleven girls again. But now she'd added four boys, preteens from the looks of it. The sheer volume of killings had me staggered. I wondered what Esme would make of the break in her pattern, targeting both genders instead of girls only. Maybe she's running out of female runaways, I thought with a little sob of hysteria.

Esme decided to risk sending out another hunting party.

"I doubt she can come up with these types of numbers every few days for very long," she said. "If she's getting all of her victims from Seattle, she's going to start drawing attention even if they are all runaways and foster kids. If she's getting them from outside Seattle, it will take her time to find people who fit the bill. Even if she does try to punish us for going after her, I doubt she could come up with the shocking increase in murders that worked so effectively the first time. This time, I will go too. Perhaps we'll find something useful. Please excuse me, you two; I really must begin making preparations if this foray is to succeed."

On Saturday, I stripped down to my underwear and looked at myself in the full-length mirror on my bedroom door. There was no getting around it; I'd been pregnant for only four and a half weeks and I already looked like I had a half-inflated soccer ball stuffed under my ribcage. It wasn't huge—it looked pretty much like a more-rounded version of how I looked following a bountiful holiday season, complete with Thanksgiving leftovers and a whole platterful of Christmas cookies—but it would only get more obvious from here. I didn't seem to be gaining weight anywhere else, though: my cheekbones actually looked sharper than they had before I got pregnant. In fact, my whole face looked more defined and mature.

"Masen," I said conversationally, "this is getting ridiculous. I don't mean to be judgy before you're even breathing air, but if I am ever going to finish cooking you, you're going to have to stop taking up so much room. How in god's name am I supposed to go on hiding you?"

I finished getting dressed, then checked my email. There were messages from my mom, complaining that she never heard from me anymore—oh, dear, I hadn't been a very good correspondent lately, had I?—and some Facebook notifications.

And there was an email from Jake. All it said was,

Bella, please don't do this. One of these days someone's going to tell me you got sick or hit by a car or you fell off a cliff, and I'll never see you again because you'll be one of them, forever. I can't keep losing people I care about. Your dad can't keep losing people. If you won't think of me, at least think of him.

Please, Bella.

I opened a new draft. Jake, I wrote. It's a very complicated situation. I don't even know how to get into it. Can you please just try to trust me? I swear I'm not taking this lightly. Call me. I need to explain some things.

It wasn't much, but it was the best I could do.

Jake didn't call that day, or the next, and he didn't pick up when I called him. Edward let me cry about it at night, and if he was upset that I was crying about another boy, he didn't show it. Masen was as unhappy with the situation as I was; he didn't move as often, and if I didn't make Edward listen for his heartbeat every two hours, I would have become alarmed. But Masen's heart was fine. He just seemed to be listless, or whatever listlessness is called in an unborn child.

The day I hit five weeks, I sat in the living room of the Cullen mansion, post-transfusion, listening to Edward play the piano while Esme and Carlisle sang a duet together. Carlisle had to take a phone call in the middle of some adorable old-timey thing called Let the Rest of the World Go By, and when he returned he looked unhappy.

"Cary, what is it?" asked Esme. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"That was Harry Clearwater," he said. My heart sank; this couldn't possibly be good. "He has learned that we have plans to turn Bella; if we do so, it will be considered a breach of the treaty, and they will consider themselves honor bound to drive us away."

"Oh, no," I groaned. "Jake, you idiot—"

"Bella, can you shed some light on this? It does not appear to be as unexpected to you as it is to the rest of us."

"I...may have told Jake that I plan on being changed. I didn't realize they would take it that way! It just sort of...came up in conversation. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't even think about the treaty..."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Bella," said Esme. "They would have figured it out sooner or later."

"What are we gonna do?" I said hollowly.

"Pray that the delivery goes smoothly and there is no need to turn you?" suggested Edward. I rolled my eyes.

"Are they really going to drive you out of town?"

"It would be within their rights," said Carlisle, "as agreed upon by the treaty. They would also no longer be honor-bound to keep our condition a secret. This could put them in danger from all sides; although we have a personal agreement with the tribe, the rest of the vampire world does not, and it would be unwise for your friends to draw too much attention to themselves."

"Great," I said bitterly. "Thanks a lot, Jake."

"Perhaps if we explained the situation to them—" began Esme delicately.

"Don't say anything yet," I said. "Let me do it." I would try to explain to Jake, try to get him on my side. Maybe something would decide to go right in my freakshow of a life. But I wouldn't count on it.

The opportunity to explain things to Jake was never to arrive. After my shower the next morning, I lost my balance while trying to stuff my legs into pants that were definitely too small. I teetered for a second and then, as if in slow motion, slammed belly-first into the corner of the bathroom sink and fell like a rag doll on the cold tile floor.

Spasms ripped through my midsection, sharp and hot and horrible.

"Dad—!" I gasped out, rolling onto my side and curling around Masen protectively, pulling my oversize sweatshirt down as if to shield him from this blinding pain. It hurt too much and I was too winded to yell loudly, but Charlie's bedroom was just across the hall and he heard me right away.

"Bells, what is it?" he yelled through the door. I couldn't answer, I could barely even breathe; all I could do was moan in pain. I felt like ice-picks were stabbing through my abdomen. I felt like I'd fallen on a spike.

My dad rattled the bathroom door, but I'd locked it. I couldn't get up to unlock it, either. Eventually, Charlie just started throwing his body against the door until the frame gave way. Distantly I saw him leaning over me, but the image was fuzzy and I couldn't seem to keep my eyes on it. I heard him talking, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the words. I felt something warm and sticky leak down my legs, and then I felt nothing.

When my eyes began to focus again, I found myself lying in a white bed in a white room under a white blanket. I was hooked up to a whole lot of equipment, and the smell of blood was everywhere. It took a second for everything to come back, but when I remembered what had happened, I lost my mind. I couldn't move my arms or legs—in fact I couldn't move anything—but I could sure as hell still scream.

"Bella," said Edward's voice from close by, "Bella, calm down, love, please—"

"What happened to Masen?" It was the only thought I could manage to put into words. "Tell me he's okay," I begged, "tell me he's okay—"

Then I felt a nudge in my midsection, softer than the nudges I'd become used to of late, but enough at least to tell me he was still alive. I burst into tears, trying to reach out and cover him with my hand, and that was when I realized why I couldn't move: they'd put me in restraints.

"He's okay," whispered Edward, smoothing my sweat- and tear-soaked hair away from my face. "He's alive. His heartbeat is strong. You, on the other hand—you've had some internal bleeding." He reached over and undid my restraints. "Sorry about these. You tried to bite one of the paramedics."

"Where's Carlisle?" I asked tearfully. I wouldn't feel easy until I'd heard it from the doctor's mouth.

"He heard your yells," said Edward. "He's on his way now. And your dad is grabbing some breakfast in the cafeteria. Do you want me to go get him?"

"Not yet," I said. "Not until I've talked to Carlisle."

"Talked to Carlisle about what?" asked Edward's father, gliding into the room on soundless feet. He went into the usual routine, checking my heartbeat and Masen's, taking my temperature.

"What happened to Masen?" I asked urgently. "I want to know everything."

"The amniotic sac did not rupture, and the fetus seems to be undamaged," said Carlisle gravely, "but I can't say the same for you. Without taking an X-Ray, I can't be sure of the extent of the damage, but I believe your kidneys may have sustained some injury and loss of function, and your entire abdomen is deeply bruised. When you lost bowel control, your stools emerged bloody. Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

"I was getting dressed," I said, ashamed of my bloody stools. "I got tangled up in my pants. That happens all the time, actually. Only this time when I fell, I sort of fell right on the corner of the sink, right with my stomach, and then there was this stabbing pain and I fell to the floor. When I fell, it felt like...like something ripped. You're sure the amniotic sac didn't tear?"

"As sure as I can be right now. My belief is that you jarred or crushed the sac, sending the fetus into distress. The tearing, stabbing pain you felt was not from damage to the sac, but rather from the force of the panicking fetus inside. At his current level of strength, he was more than able to inflict damage on the organs that were closest to him, even through the barrier. Most of your internal damage seems to be a result of his panicked, sudden movements. Furthermore, it is my belief that, without bed rest, this danger will only increase."

"Bed rest?" I echoed. "Are you for real?"

"I'm afraid so," he said apologetically. "I know it is impractical, but as you have experienced firsthand, the fetus is already strong enough to hurt you—unintentionally, of course. He will only become stronger. I feel that you should be kept in an appropriate medical facility, starting as soon as possible and ending only after delivery. There you will have constant care and bed rest."

"What do you mean, 'facility?" I asked, another wave of panic rising in my gullet. "I can't go somewhere, not now—"

"Relax, Bella," said Edward, taking my hand. "He means our house. You should come stay at our house. Rosalie, Emmett and I all have reasonably recent medical degrees; between us and Carlisle, you will never be far from the proper care."

"How am I supposed to explain that to my dad?" I asked. "I'm pretty sure he won't want me shacking up with you before I've even finished with high school."

"We knew this day might come," said Carlisle. "In fact, I expected it. You cannot complete the pregnancy in your father's house without explaining to him why it is such an unnatural one and why your needs are so far beyond what a normal pregnancy might indicate. There is a chance that he won't even accept the truth. He may impede your safe treatment if he thinks he is being lied to; at the very least, explaining these things to him would place him in danger. We are breaking a very severe rule letting you know about us—even knowing you will soon be one of us. You cannot go on without more constant care, and I'm afraid I can't think of a single human who could be entrusted with the level of alert oversight your case will shortly be requiring. It will be safest for you to come to us."

"You knew you would have to say goodbye, Bella," said Edward gently. "At least this way it's on your terms...well, a little bit." To his credit, he did not try to tell me that none of this would be a problem if I'd just taken care of the thing in the first place. Maybe naming his son had warmed him to the idea of fatherhood.

"I don't know how to do this," I said quietly, looking at my hands. My nails were strong and hard and rosy—in fact, my skin had never looked more radiant and my hair was growing like kudzu, all shiny and bouncy and already grown down to the small of my back. It was probably the prenatal vitamins Carlisle had me on. I was turning into the most beautiful version of myself I'd ever seen, just in time to turn into someone else. Maybe it was the hormones, but that thought made me strangely sad.

"You have a few days," said Carlisle. "I wouldn't push it past a week, if we can help it, and I don't want you returning to school at all. You're about five and a half months along at this point. In another week, who knows where your body will be? Who knows what the fetus will need one week, two or three weeks from now?"

That, of course, decided me. I hated to leave my home, and I hated to lie to Charlie, but it was all for Masen. I would have done much harder things for my son.

"How much does my dad know about—about what happened?" I asked, the wheels whirling in my brain. "Edward, did he seem suspicious about my inexplicably enlarged womb or anything?"

"He didn't see any of that," said Edward. "Your sweatshirt covered it and he didn't look too closely in any case. He's worried, of course, but as far as he knows you simply fell."

"But a simple fall wouldn't result in a visit to the ER," I pointed out. "Not if I were healthy to begin with."

"Probably not—" Edward began.

"You may be right," sighed Carlisle, understanding what I was getting at before Edward did. Edward read his father's mind and his eyes grew wide.

"Ohh," he said. "I see." Then, sadly, "Poor Charlie."

"Edward," I said, "can you please go find my dad? He should probably know I'm awake." The sooner he gets here, the sooner I can break his heart.

The sun was setting, not that you could tell through the fog.

"I don't understand," said Charlie in consternation. "What do you think is wrong with her, exactly?"

"We can't be sure," said Carlisle. "That is why further testing is required. We will perform an MRI and a few routine blood tests. Hopefully that will tell us where to look."

"An MRI," repeated Charlie. "Why do you need to look at her brain? It was her stomach that got hurt."

"Bella tells me she has experienced increasing difficulty balancing of late. It may be related to the fall that brought her here today."

"You've been having trouble balancing?" said Charlie, turning to look at me. "Bells, why didn't you say anything?"

"I thought it was just...more of the same, I guess. Like when I fell on Alice's scissors."

"Of course," said Charlie. His face twisted, and I saw Edward take a half-step toward him, his own face a mask of pity. "I shoulda brought you in then. Would an MRI have made a difference, if we'd done it before?" he asked Carlisle.

Carlisle smiled, his bedside manner as perfect and comforting as it always was. "We'll know more after the testing is complete. Try not to worry too much yet; there may be a perfectly simple reason for all of this."

Charlie turned to me once more, and I was stunned by the fear in his eyes. It was the same fear I had felt when I thought Masen was injured, the same fear I felt whenever I thought about the difficulties that might lie ahead for my son.

"I'll be fine, Dad," I said, my voice cracking. "You'll see. Everything will be fine."

I'd never been a good liar. Lucky for me, Charlie was too terrified to notice.

Yup. Lucky.

Some of you wondered why my Bella was still going about her normal life knowing she had an abnormal pregnancy. In the book, Bella was graduated and married and officially moved out of her father's house, so there was nothing suspicious in the fact that she was suddenly spending all her time at the Cullens'. She was planning to do that in any case, and in fact had already established an alibi to give to her parents when the time came (the "sickness" that was used as an excuse to hide the pregnancy was originally intended to be used as an excuse to hide the planned-for transformation). And it didn't matter how many bridges she burned when she became a vampire: she was willing to give up her whole life and bid her parents a permanent goodbye in exchange for the life she wanted, so if all else failed she could just pretend to get in a car crash and have done with it. My Bella has never yet planned seriously for her removal from the living, either emotionally or practically; because she places a higher value on her human relationships she will work hard to avoid burning any more bridges than she absolutely must. Furthermore, although Carlisle can guess that at some point the fetus's strength might endanger her, that hasn't really happened yet and it's much easier to procrastinate acting on a hypothetical threat than an imminent one. My Bella has not yet understood how immediate the risk is and how imperative it is for her to stay in one place under constant medical oversight, and because she dreads losing her human relationships she's been putting off the inevitable, clinging to her last weeks of human normalcy. Now that she's experienced her very first pregnancy-related injury, "normal" is going to change.

Whew. I just got through a whole A/N without being mean once. *Grows as a person*