Disclaimer: Same as chapter 1.

Chapter 22: Take Two

Inside the Cullen household, the vampires were busying themselves with preparing dinner. Alice bounded downstairs when the door opened, she smiled at Rian politely before she and Jasper walked into the kitchen while Emmett and Rian followed behind the other couple. "You ready for that English test Friday?" Alice asked making small talk, hoping to calm the redhead's nerves (Rian had mentioned she was nervous about having to spend time with Emmett's family, worried that Esme, Bella, or Edward wouldn't like her).

"Oh, yeah, because an English test is what I'm really worried about lately. Besides, with any luck I won't be in school Friday to have to take that test." Rian replied coolly.

"Are you hungry, sweetheart? We have hamburgers, French fries, and fruit almost ready." Esme's sweet voice suddenly cut through Alice and Rian's conversation about the English test.

"Renesmee wanted to share her favorite meal tonight with you." Edward answered her slightly disgusted thoughts of the greasy food. Rian forced a smile at the intruding bastard.

While Bella and Esme finished cooking the burgers, Emmett and Edward talked about sports or something and Rian and Alice entertained Nessie. Nessie was going on and on about her last hunting trip she went on with her parents. She was apparently thrilled that humans were so close but she was able to control her thirst. Listening to her talk, although the little girl didn't know Rian's problems, she began to feel her mind slip. She felt the panicked feeling she always got whenever she was faced with one of the creatures (not including the Cullens), maybe it was more of a reaction to the hallucination than to the creatures itself. She didn't know because the only vampires she knew were the Cullens. In the corner of the room stood one of the said creatures, eyes dark with lust as the blood dripped down his chin and onto the body below. The body was a crushed version of herself; bones broken as if she had fought back. Her black hair spilled out all over the floor beneath her, drenched in the thick substance. Her mind knew this wasn't real, it was a hallucination, because if it wasn't one of the Cullens would have jumped into action by now. But that didn't spot her from almost screaming Emmett's name when the vampire lunged at her.

The sudden change in attitude Rian just displayed confused the little girl, and Emmett would have had a heart attack if his heart was still beating. Esme almost dropped her plate of food she had been carrying to the table in her attempt to comfort Rian. The only one in the house that actually knew what was going on was Edward, all the other 'adults' in the house assumed the baby had hurt her.

"What happened?" Emmett was panicking, it was clear in her voice.

"Rian, it's not real." Edward said, trying to comfort the girl, calm her down before she scared his daughter. "No one is there."

The redhead hadn't been more thankful of the guy's power before then. He could see exactly what her mind was telling her was there, what she was so convinced she was seeing. She pulled her eyes away from the corner to where Edward was standing, his arms on his daughter's shoulders. Her face softened when she looked at Nessie's little confused face. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I though I saw something that scared me." She tried to explain to the little girl.

"Saw what?" Nessie asked innocently.

Great, now she'd have come up with something. She smiled sweetly at the girl, "I'll let your father explain it." She said avoiding having to lie or explain the truth that she has hallucination of bad vampires killing her.

Edward didn't have time to open his mouth to explain or lie, the door to the house finally opened and Carlisle walked into the house.

Soon Rian found herself sitting on the (makeshift) examination table or whatever the doctors called it. Carlisle was digging through his bag for the tape measure he has been using to measure the growth of her uterus and the file he had his information on her progress. When he was down he asked her to lay back as usual, and as usual she did what his said while pulling her dress up high enough to expose her belly. Emmett was standing beside her, as he always did and watched as Carlisle did his usual routine of taking measurements and jotting them down in the folder. Then Carlisle took more blood, which he had previously said he would be doing weekly and as needed. He asked her how she had been feeling the past couple of days to which she mentioned the morning sickness that was not only in the morning.

Carlisle walked back over to the table that held his bag to compare the new information to the old. Rian pulled her shirt down and sat up as Emmett watched Carlisle.

Carlisle began digging through his bag once again, usually at this point Carlisle talked to her about what she might expect to happen and tell her to call him if anything happens. He pulled out a small hand size device which was attached to a small microphone-like object. "I would like to see if we can hear the baby's heart beat." He began to say as he walked back towards Rian. "This can hear a normal baby's heartbeat. I didn't think about using it with Bella because the sonograms pictures didn't work on her. Lay back."

Once again Rian laid back against the table and pulled her dress up. Carlisle squeezed out a small amount of cold gel-like liquid before he placed the 'microphone' part of the device on her lower abdomen. With the gel the device slide easily across her stomach until Carlisle finally found a faint heartbeat after a few minutes of moving the device around. At first Rian couldn't hear the heartbeat, or wasn't able to distinguish it between the other sounds of her stomach. But her brain finally latched on the steady (and fast) bum-bum on the baby's heartbeat. A feeling she couldn't quiet describe spread through her body, it was more than happiness and excitement. She closed her eyes listening to the sound until it was ripped away.

When Rian opened her eyes again, she saw Carlisle putting the device away in his back and Emmett was on the other side of the room with him. They were talking in their quick vampire speed so she couldn't hear them. She hated when they did that, especially now right after hearing her baby's heartbeat. Was something wrong with the baby's heart?

Rian's happiness was crushed and replaced with instantaneous fear and worry. "What is it? What's wrong?" She hadn't heard anything wrong with the heartbeat, it was faster than she expected though. "What's wrong with my baby?" She practically screamed at them after they both looked back at her and just stared.

Emmett looked worried, almost distraught, when he answered. "There are two heartbeats."