I think some of you have been waiting for this...I'm looking at you AN Hanninen ;)

Thank you to Sri, who reads the first mess of this and cheers me on. Crazy thanks to Iris who stayed at work well past ten to edit this for me. That's above and beyond for sure!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter 4ubleddry. I tweet songs that inspire and pics of Lundqvist.

On the way to grab a pizza to bring home, Bella began to imagine arguing with Mike. It had been years since she'd bickered with anyone. The Cullens' arrival seemed to have lit a fire in her. She'd had words with Edward several times ‒ that was to be expected ‒ but to clash with Jacob and Angela too? That was unheard of. And here she was, standing in line at Pacific Pizza, ready to go home and lay into her husband.

She started taking deep breaths. She tried to picture life with a baby but couldn't. It was a hard limit for her. Would it be for Mike?

"Swan!" A voice from behind the counter called out, snapping her out of her daydream. "Swan!"

She moved forward. "That's me, Casey. I'm right here." She had grabbed dinner from this pizza place enough to know most of the staff, and Casey had worked here for a year. He always reminded Bella of an Irish setter; he had long wavy red hair that he always wore tied back and a constant, eager smile.

"Oh, hi, Mrs. Newton. What's with the name change?"

"Name change?" Bella inquired. She had no idea what he was talking about.

"Yeah, you always pick up under the name Newton. Whose last name is Swan?"

"Oh." Bella forced herself to laugh. "That was me before I was married. I must have gone back in time." She forced another small laugh.

"I thought you looked younger today, Mrs. Newton." Casey winked at her as he pushed the pizza toward her. "Have a good one!" He called out his usual farewell as he turned away to get the next order.

Bella gave her head a slight shake as she walked out the door. She really wasn't looking forward to going home.

Bella sat outside the house for a few minutes, trying ‒ once again ‒ to regain her composure. It wasn't going to do anyone any good to go in there ready to fight. She surprised herself by focusing on Edward's advice. She needed to talk to Mike, not yell at him. She took one last deep breath, which only resulted in a loud growl from her stomach; she'd been deeply inhaling the aroma of pizza all the way home. Bella sighed and grabbed the box. A slight tremor in her hands revealed her attempts to settle down had been unsuccessful.

By the time Bella was at the door, Mike had already opened it. He stood before her with an unsure smile. "Hey," he greeted gently.

"Hey," she echoed back to him.

"Com'ere." He slurred his words as he pulled the pizza from her hands. His arm reached around her and crushed her to his chest. The corner of the box pushed into her back. He kissed the top of her head, and she closed her eyes, forcing the tears back. She willed him to apologize, to end this right now. He said nothing. She realized he was probably praying for the same thing.

"Let's go eat," she said, finally speaking up. "You can tell me about the trip." She pulled away from him and moved toward the dining room. It was a change from their routine when Mike arrived home from an extended trip. They usually satisfied their other hungers before bringing their take-out to the bedroom where they could linger over it, and each other, the rest of the night.

The tension didn't dissipate as they ate. Mike wolfed down half the pizza before talking. He was eager to be eating something other than camp grub but also unsure of what to say. Bella picked at her pizza for the same reason. The hunger she'd felt in the car had disappeared. The few bites she did take tasted like cardboard.

"So one of the guys on the expedition asked if we do fishing trips. I'm going to talk to Jacob to see if I can hire some of the guys on the reserve to help me out there. I'll wait 'till Ness has had the baby, though. Any word yet?"

And there it was; what they had both spent the past 20 minutes avoiding. As soon as Mike saw the look on Bella's face, he regretted bringing it up. He had talked to Ben that afternoon. He knew what had happened between Angela and Bella. And he knew his role in it.

Bella looked away from her pizza and up at Mike for the first time since they'd sat down. "No, nothing yet. She's a week overdue, so I'm expecting to hear any day now." She went back to picking at her pizza.

"Babe, we need to talk about this." Mike reached over and grabbed her fidgeting hand.

"I know we do. I just don't know what to say." Bella pulled her hand away and stood up. She dumped her half-eaten slice back in the box and reached for Mike's plate. "Are you done?"

"Yeah, I've got it." He stood up with her and followed her into the kitchen. They worked together in silence; she washed the plates, and he picked them from the dish rack and dried them off.

"I'm sorry," he spoke, putting the last plate away. Bella turned around and leaned against the counter. He mirrored her. "I didn't handle that very well. When Ben first told me about her, I declined right away."

"Ben knew we didn't want children. Why did he even go to you in the first place?"

"No, Bella." Mike put his hands up and rubbed his temples. He knew there would be consequences for what he was about to say. "Ben knew you didn't want children. He also knew that I did."

"Since when?"

"Honestly? I've always figured I'd have kids. Even when you told me you couldn't, I figured we'd find a way when the time was right."

"But I don't want them. I've told you that from the start."

"You did, but we've never really talked about this."

"We've talked about it enough that you should know how I feel!" Bella raised her voice to Mike for the first time. She registered the shock that moved across his face before his expression hardened.

"Bella, once, before we were dating, a mother with four kids walked by us, and I asked you how many kids you'd like one day. You said, 'None. I can't have kids.' Every other time I've brought it up, you've basically said the same thing. We've never had a formal discussion about what that really meant for our future." His tone matched Bella's.

"That's not entirely true; I've also told you that I'm okay with that, because I don't want to be a mother."

"Yes, but always in the context of you telling me you can't have them." Their voices continued to escalate.

"That shouldn't take away from what I'm telling you!" Bella's hand slapped down on the counter.

"But it does!" Mike's voice boomed; it shocked the both of them. "I was never sure if you were just saying that because you can't." Then he brought his voice back down to a less threatening level. "I thought maybe you'd just resigned yourself to a childless future and hadn't thought about other ways we could be parents."

"Well, I'm telling you now. I don't want to be a mother."

"Well, I'm telling you now. I want to be a father."

The two stared at each other in disbelief.

"What are you saying?" Bella broke first. "If I don't agree to this, we're done?"

"No. Is that what you're saying, though? If I don't agree to give up on this, then we're over?"

"No! But I'm not the one who's changed their mind here!" Bella raised her voice again.

"Bella." Mike sighed. "When you think about the future - really think about it - when you think of Christmases and Halloweens, what do you picture?"

Bella took a moment to think about it. She realized she never really pictured the future. Sure, she thought of a generic future with Mike, but she never took time to think of the details. What would they be like in ten years?

"What do you picture?" he pleaded. "I think about being woken up entirely too early on Christmas morning. I'd make us coffee while you changed the baby. There'd be someone tugging on my pajama bottoms saying, 'Santa's come! Santa's come!' I think about the years passing, the tree filling with homemade decorations. I think about all the candy we'd sort through after Halloween and what it'd be like to put kids to bed when they're hopped up on sugar. I imagine us late at night in the backyard, hiding plastic eggs of candy. I'd spend time wondering if the kids can play soccer and baseball through the summer, and if I can coach both sports for each kid we have." He looked at Bella. He dried her tears with his thumbs as he stepped toward her, hopeful that his vision of their future had gotten through to her.

"That's beautiful."

He smiled.

"But that's not for me."

Her words felt like a blow to the gut, to his heart. He stepped back.

"Mike, I'm sorry." She reached for his hands this time. "I had no idea that's what you wanted in life. And what you describe sounds so beautiful ‒ it really does ‒ but I just can't picture myself in it."

"I know springing this adoption on you was wrong. I handled that so badly, but please don't let your anger with my fuck-up get in the way of this."

"Mike, this isn't anger. I just haven't changed my mind. I always felt that you and I were on the same page about this. Did you change your mind, or were you hoping I would change mine?"

"In the beginning, I was willing to be whoever you wanted me to be so long as I could be with you. If you wanted us to be childless, I was fine with that, because I got to be with you."

"In the beginning…?"

"That didn't come out quite right." Mike let go of Bella's hands and guided them around his waist, doing the same to her with his arms. "I'm not saying that I don't want to be with you. I'm just saying that now that we're together, my ideals have changed a little. I still want to be with you more than any other desire I could possibly have. I just want to share that journey, all that love we have, with someone else."

"When did you start feeling this way?"

"After Ben and Angela had Adam. Witnessing their family grow, knowing how much stronger it made them as a couple? I wanted that with us."

"That long?"

"It took me a while to figure it out. Bella..." Mike pulled away so that he could look at her. He needed her to understand how much he wanted this. "I haven't had a father for a little while now. I've realized, though, that I'm not ready to give up that father-child relationship. I can't be a son again, but I can be a dad now. I know you still aren't ready. I just want you to think about it a little more. Maybe now that I've finally told you what it means to me, you'll think about it differently."

Bella didn't know what to say. She loved Mike. What he'd told her was beautiful and compelling. But it didn't change her mind.

"Mike…" she trailed of, unsure of how to break his heart. But the look he gave her indicated he already knew what she was going to say.

"I know, babe." He pulled her tight against his chest. She felt him kiss the top of her head, and then they cried together, clinging to each other as they felt the distance grow.