the outtakes
growing
Everything grows rounder and wider and weirder and I sit here in the middle of it all and wonder who in the world you will turn out to be.
- Carrie Fisher
o.o.o
Bella is sick.
"Oh, God, this is awful," she groans. The only reason she isn't on the floor at the moment is because the entirety of her weight is supported by Edward's enduring presence at her back and the convenient shape of the toilet at her front. If she weren't feeling so crummy, she might be embarrassed that he's witnessing this first-hand - but as it is, she does feel just wretched with nausea and vertigo and a chill on her skin-
Edward brushes hair off her forehead, a kiss to her temple quickly following. He makes a rather good show of masking the bright flare of anxiety rolling off him in waves.
Something you ate?
Her glare is half-hearted. "I don't think some rancid chicken is going to cause this," she clips darkly, hunching over again when a strange cramp in her lower stomach comes again. She braces herself for the next heave, one hand falling to her stomach -
Bella gasps.
And then she moans. "Oh, this isn't fair!"
"Bella?"
"I thought everyone was just exaggerating about morning sickness!" she cries in dismay.
Edward is quiet for a moment before he chokes out a strangled, "What."
With some effort, Bella straightens her spine and guides his hand to her lower abdomen - right where there is evidence of a new hardness to her skin, along with the faintest shadow of roundness that, had she been human, might have been attributed to bloating. But she's not human and she doesn't get sick and her body doesn't just change -
There is only one possible explanation.
Unfortunately, her elation at this discovery is marred by the resurgence of the absolute hell that is morning sickness.
o.o.o
o.o.o
In the mirror, she twists and turns, completely naked and eying herself critically.
Bella tilts her head, smoothing her hand from the bottom of her ribs to just above her pubic bone. She has a bump, a swell of flesh between her hips, that had not been there the day before. A swell that grows more pronounced each day.
She smiles.
o.o.o
o.o.o
"Love, you have to eat something."
Bella wrinkles her nose, shaking her head as she stands in the ravine below where she has just chased off yet another herd of deer. "They don't smell right," she says, nearly a whine, her hands falling over the smooth swell of her stomach where their child rested so peacefully. For now, at least. Bella needs to hunt - her eyes are nearly pitch black - but as has been the case for the last few days, her appetite, her thirst, wasn't stoked by any of her normal favorites. The bottled blood formula wasn't working, either.
As of this moment, he is no longer concerned - now he is edging closer and closer to outright panic. Although his mate may be the true doctor between the two of them, Edward is no slouch. He's been to medical school a few times and he knows just how vital it is that a mother maintain a proper diet during a pregnancy. That Bella required blood was not at all surprising - it was a point of fact that even the human mothers of hybrids drank their fill - but what was surprising was that more and more it didn't seem that Bella would be able to drink anything at all.
He doesn't have words to express how conflicted he's been since they found out. Joyous because he would be a father. Overly-protective because he knows how dangerous hybrid pregnancy has been. Happy. Overwhelmed. Obsessive. He's been on an emotional haywire right along with Bella's violent, unpredictable mood swings - and this new issue in feeding his mate and his children is doing nothing to keep the reins on his inner monster.
Edward leaps down the steep incline, scattering late autumnal debris beneath the soles of his feet. He presses his chest against her back, reaching around to cover her hands with his, waiting for that faint flicker in the back of his mind that tells him she has tapped into his thoughts.
Show me what the problem is, he requests as calmly as possible - quite the feat, considering he's halfway to either carting her over to Carlisle or finding a human that smelt appealing to her, neither of which are options Bella will tolerate.
Her mind brushes against his, pushing forward a series of half-formed thoughts and impressions of emotions, all of them centralized around the wrongness of all the options they have tried so far. Their quarry not smelling right is the simplest way she can translate the strange instinct that he has found to be related to all of her cravings - some of which he considers it best to not recall at the moment.
The unconscious clench of his jaw relaxes minutely. It's not so much that she can't drink or that she won't hunt - it's just that she has this esoteric craving that she can't quite put her finger on and it's getting in the way of even considering another source of sustenance.
Edward's fingers lace through Bella's, = head dipping down to ghost his nose over the gracile line of her jaw, the singular thud of her heartbeat echoed by the hummingbird-quickness of their child's.
"How do you feel about cougar? Lynx, maybe?" he mutters into her skin, an entire list of nearby carnivores piling up in the back of his mind. He's almost certain that this is the issue - Bella has made a habit of hunting herbivores and it seems that what she really needs, what the baby is demanding, is a prey that is not so passive. Of course, this is an entirely new set of issues in regard to her safety, but he's more than happy to do the hunting for her. He'd prefer it, actually. He doesn't care how far he has to run - if he needs to, he'll break into a nearby zoo.
He'll do anything.
Bella's head twists around to stare up at him with amusement and he is again arrested by the exquisite structure of her bones, the curve of her lips twisting into a wry smile as she reads him more thoroughly than anyone in his entire life. God save him and forgive him for this blasphemy, but it is Bella who he worships - not the Lord that had long forgotten him.
She is so beautiful to him - always - but now, there is a stated warmth to her beauty. He is often driven to distraction by the new shape of her body, of the wonders she is introducing him to -
"Lynx actually sounds palatable," she says softly.
The vise loosens around his chest.
o.o.o
o.o.o
He kneels before her, hands placed to either side of the protrusion of her belly button, palms battered by dual cadences of tiny hands and feet thrumming against the strong wall of Bella's stomach.
Twins.
Edward tilts his head forward, forehead pressed to skin as Bella's hands comb through his hair.
He can hear them already - and beyond their contentedness, he wonders what they will be. There is no medical technology that is strong enough to peer through the vampiric membrane to deliver an ultrasound, so they are ignorant of their children's sex and it is impossible for the children to know what they are.
He supposes it doesn't matter. So long as all three pieces of his heart are beating at the end of this ordeal, he'll be happy.
It is enough - for now - to wallow in the shimmering impressions of his family's minds.
A/N: An outtake request! Ended up doing from both perspectives because I seriously couldn't make up my mind as to which was better.
As always, be brutally honest. I can take it.
~cupcakeriot