I was in a dream. A wonderful dream.

Edward held me the entire evening. Dance after dance. There were some other attendees who tried to cut in but we never separated.

Instead I felt like we danced on our own little cloud. Drifting. In our own world.

We were engaged in a one-step dance when Edward first misstepped and then tensed under my hands. "Bella, we need to leave!" he whispered urgently.

"What is wrong?" I asked him, my brows furrowed in confusion.

"I am sorry I did not recognise them before." he said. "It's someone from Forks, Mrs. Stanley. She is Jessica Stanleys mother. And she saw us. I only realized she was here when I heard my name in her head. She knows who we are."

"Edward, do you think she saw-"

"Not yet." He shook his head. "That is why we need to leave. She is a terrible gossip. Possible the worst gossip in Forks. Just like her daughter. If she were to see your stomach the entirety of Forks would know by midday tomorrow. And that would not only be against our wish for privacy but could also expose us all. We would have to move again."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "How could a baby bump expose us?"

"Well, normally the baby should grow, no?" he said, not expecting an answer. "And the belly grows with it."

"Right," I nodded in understanding and smiled at him. "Although it almost feels like my bump is growing. I mean, I'm almost bursting out of this dress."

We moved quickly through the other dancing pairs, Edward always continuously positioned himself so that my midsection would not be seen by Mrs. Stanley.

Once we had put some distance between us Edward visibly relaxed. He took my hand in his and entwined them. "Why don't we take a stroll outside for a while before we leave?"

"Just as we did at Theodore Montgomery's soiree?" I asked with a grin. "You were quite daring that evening. I had not known you for more than two hours and you wanted me alone already."

"And I was so very grateful that you allowed me to take you away."

I shrugged. "There was little allowing involved. Once you had asked me with so much hope in your green eyes I could not say anything but yes. You always had the power to disarm me completely."

"You always had the same power over me." he said, pulling me closer to press a kiss to my hair as we left the entrance behind us. "You could have asked anything of me and I wouldn't have been able to deny you. Even on the first evening."

"If I remember correctly you were the only one asking things from me." I chuckled.

Edward joined me. "And you were only too eager to grant me that first kiss."

"What else could I do? You asked so nicely."

It was growing quiet once we had left the entrance behind us. Obviously I still heard the active humming coming from the Seattle Centre Armory but it blended together with all the other sounds of the city and became a dull buzzing in the background of my mind.

It was one of the rare clear nights we got on the Olympic Peninsula, especially in fall, and the stars overhead sparkled like diamonds. The moon was slim that evening and the lights on the Seattle Space Needle were dimmed.

Even humans would be able to see most of the beautiful stars that evening.

"I have missed this." I sighed, a serene smile on my lips.

"Me too, love. More than you could ever imagine." he agreed. "It is nice to take you to a dance again. It brings back so many memories."

"I think I can imagine." I told him and squeezed his hand.

We soaked up the others' presence in a comfortable silence as Edward led us to the fountain near the Armory.

"Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like if we hadn't been separated for so long?" I broke the silence.

"Sometimes." he said quietly as he sat at the edge of the hollow that led down to the semi-spherical fountain. Water gushed out of it, misting the air whenever there was a breeze. "But I grow sad whenever I think too much about it. It just seems like so much time we could have happily spent together was wasted. And instead we both suffered in solitude." He pulled me into his lap, wrapped his arms around my waist and softly caressed my belly. "Alice told me I should think more about the future. About the eternity we have ahead. I think she is trying to save Jasper from my depressive episodes now that I am an overall much more high spirited person." He chuckled. "But sometimes I do dwell on it. And I feel so much regret and guilt because I was partially responsible for our separation and the pain I cause you with it."

"Sometimes I feel the same way for a moment. And then I feel guilty for feeling bad when I have got you back by my side. Rosalie said I am allowed to feel different emotions. I am not required to feel blissfully happy every minute of every hour. Just like she is not always ecstatic even though she has Emmett but I still feel guilty. I mean, Rosalie can never really understand until she had the same experiences, no? She never thought she lost Emmett. I feel like I am so much more grateful for every moment I am allowed to spend in your presence because I know what it feels like to mourn you." I nestled into Edward's embrace, his arms providing a sense of security and warmth. His fingers traced gentle patterns over the strained fabric of my dress. His chin was balanced on my shoulder. "And at the same time I am trying to move past the regret. We can't change the past, no matter how much we dwell on it. But what matters is that we're together now, and we have an eternity ahead of us to make up for all those lost years."

"You're right, love." Edwards breaths against my ear tingled. "We will both have to learn to accept what happened. But it will take some time. At least for me. I know the last ninety years have hardened me. I have grown pessimistic. I was depressed."

"You were mourning." I supplied.

"Yes." he nodded against my shoulder. "I was mourning you, Bella. And I would have done so for all of eternity. Or at least until I would have eventually ended my existence." The pain was clear in his wavering voice.

I reached back to stroke his cheek. "Shh." I tried to sooth him.

"What I am trying to say is that I was broken all this time and even though the hole in my chest has been healed my head has not yet fully understood. It is so used to the grief and gloom that it often slips in those negative thoughts. I will have to convert my mind and learn to focus on the future ahead and the beautiful memories of our human life. I imagine it is much the same for you."

"Yes it is." I nodded and turned my head. Meeting his gaze. "And as for our separation, Edward, it was never your fault. You couldn't control the circumstances any more than I could. Do not lay all this blame at your feet. We both endured the pain of our separation, and we both found our way back to each other."

"I suppose that is another thought pattern I learned over time, no?" he said with a crooked grin. "I mean, I know I always apologize too much. But I have perfected that artform over the century."

"I imagine the mind reading is not helping, is it?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No, obviously not. Most people would much rather blame others than themselves, at least in their mind. And I will always know if someone feels like I have wronged them. Even if they intellectually know that I was not at fault and will say so out loud they will blame me in their thoughts."

I leaned in to brush my lips against his.

He swallowed hard. "May I kiss you."

"You need not ask." I whispered before his lips met mine. Soft and tender. Edward held me closer. Gradually our kiss deepened even though Edward's lips moved against mine with gentleness. I could feel the longing he had felt for so long.

When our lips finally parted, we rested our foreheads together, our breaths mingling in the cool night air.

"Bella, you are my greatest treasure. I would endure another thousand lifetimes of solitude if it meant having you by my side for eternity afterwards." His thumb caressed my cheek.

"No more dwelling on the past, Edward." I told him. "Promise me that you won't let the past weigh you down."

"I will try my very best," he said. "I promise."

"And I will try to do the same." I promised him in return.

I turned back around and leaned against his chest. His hands resumed their position on my belly, gently stroking.

"Sometimes I can't help but think about our baby." I said softly. "When it was still growing I was sometimes dreaming that it was a little boy that would look exactly like you. With your bronze hair and green eyes. But then I would wake up from the comfort of my dream and debated if seeing your eyes again in your child would be more of a comfort or a reminder of what I had lost."

"It might have been a beautiful brown haired and brown eyed girl."

"Maybe." I said thoughtfully as I tried to imagine my eyes in the face of a baby that would resemble Edward.

"I wish I could give that to you." Edward said so quietly I was not sure he had wanted me to hear it.

"I know, Edward." I put my hand on his thigh. "I wish I could have endured the pain longer. So that your child would have had a life."

"But would it have been happy?" he questioned. "Without a father."

"And a mother." I added. "I know I would not have been strong enough to live out an entire lifetime as a human without you. I was not even strong enough to make it to the end of the pregnancy. And if I had somehow managed to find the strength to raise it, I know I would have been a horrible mother."

"Why would you say that?" Edwards' voice was sharp. "You would have been a wonderful mother. I have seen you with your friends' babies."

I shook my head. "But you did not see me after I lost you. I was either crying or so emotionally distant that I simply stared at the wall for hours on end. There was no life left in me. I was emotionally dead. I could not have given our child the love it would have deserved. I know it is selfish, because I would not have been a good mother to it but I regret not giving birth. Because of my actions I will never know what our child would have looked like. I will never hold it in my arms. Our baby will never grow, never experience the world in the way humans do."

Edward pressed his lips to my hair in silent comfort as he pulled me even closer.

"I am glad that you atleast don't seem to feel the same pain as I do." I told him truthfully.

"That must be because I came into this second life without wishing for babies. Strange enough both our parents were not pressuring us into producing grandchildren and I honestly did not seriously consider it in the near future. Don't get me wrong," he said. "I knew I wanted children with you down the line. But it was not on my mind when I was changed. A very different experience from yours, I am sure."

I nodded in understanding.

"Besides, I didn't have the expectation that I would become a father. When you confessed to me that you were pregnant when you got bitten I didn't have any hope that the bump could become a baby. I knew it wouldn't. I knew right away that it would only be in your belly. and I can celebrate it as such. It is a constant representation of our love that will always be with you. Just like the ring on your finger. It is a part you and part me united. But it was never a potential life for me." he explained and pressed another kiss to my temple. "I am simply sad that you are grieving and that I can't give you everything you want. I just want you to know that I will always be there to hold you when you grieve."

"Thank you." I breathed.

"And our child will also always be there for you too." he reminded me.

As if to confirm its fathers statement there was a little nudge from inside my body. A tiny movement that I felt against my abdominal wall. A little nudge I had never felt before.

Both Edward and I froze rock solid in shock. I could not move a single muscle.

I was too stunned.

A flurry of thoughts and emotions swirled in my mind. Part of my head was overjoyed by the fact that I had felt our baby move for the first time. The other half was panicking because something had changed. Something had so fundamentally changed that my baby was moving. What had changed? It should not be moving. What had changed? It had not moved once in the ninety years since I had been bitten. What had changed? It was frozen in time and the pregnancy had never progressed to the point where I would have been able to feel any movement. What had changed? But now I did. Both of us had felt it.

And there was another nudge.

"Bella, did you feel that?" Edward breathed. "I have felt it. I felt the baby move." His voice was so full of awe and wonder. "It is incredible."

"But how?" I finally managed to say and turned to look at Edward, whose hands still held my stomach.

"You- You mean this hasn't happened before?" he asked uncertainty.

I shook my head. "Never."

"When you were human?"

Again I shook my head. "What if there is something wrong with me? Or what if I lose the baby? Can vampires have miscarriages?"

"I don't know." Edward confessed hopelessly. "I didn't even know vampires could be pregnant. I have neither seen nor heard of any pregnancies."

There was silence.

"We should leave. Alice or Carlisle will know what to do."

I shook my head. "Alice told me she has trouble seeing my future."

"Then Carlisle will know what to do," he said. "He must know something."

I knew Edward placed a lot of his trust in Dr. Cullen. He saw him as a father figure. And in that moment I understood how much Edward needed his guidance and wisdom.

"I am sure he does." I calmly told Edward.

"Wait!" he suddenly called out. "We would have to tell the family. Are you ready for that?"

I took a moment to answer. Was I? I didn't know. But that was no longer important. There was something wrong. And to get help I would have to tell the Cullens.

"I am."