A/N: Technology seriously hates me, y'all, and this entire chapter disappeared into the ether this afternoon. I've done the best I could in rewriting it, but it still feels choppy and not great.

So in addition to my usual thank you for reading and always leaving such kind reviews, here's an extra thank you for reading and not telling me it's awful, lol.

Baby Blues

Bella had spent a lot of her relationship with Edward wishing she was a vamp. When he left her in the woods, that desire slowly decreased in intensity until eventually she didn't want it anymore, and by the time she was with Jasper and might have again wished to join the supernatural world, she was pregnant with Lilly and would've done literally anything to stay human.

So it was a little unexpected to suddenly be wishing so hard again to become a vamp.

Lilly was just over a week old and Bella absolutely hated the fact that she needed sleep because it sometimes meant missing time with the baby. She wasn't exactly resentful of her family, but there was a small place inside her that felt a bit of envy that they could be awake around the clock. She hated feeling that way and she tried hard to push it down and away so her husband never felt it. Which she knew was stupid and futile, but she tried anyway.

It wasn't even all that logical. She knew she wasn't missing a whole lot. Just a few hours here and there. When Lilly woke up hungry, Jasper gently woke Bella up so she could breastfeed. On nights Bella was feeling particularly sad, Lilly slept curled on her chest with Jasper keeping both of them safe.

So she was aware she wasn't being entirely logical, but damn if that made it any easier to deal with.

Constant exhaustion probably wasn't helping either. Bella never knew what exhaustion was until now. It was just another reason she envied her family. They never got tired.

Jasper quietly came in the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He wordlessly climbed on the bed beside his sad wife and pulled the duvet back so he could lay their sleeping daughter right over her mama's heart, then carefully tucked the duvet back around Bella's waist. After covering Lilly with her blanket, Jasper laid down and pulled his girls into his arms.

"Do you want to know a secret?" he whispered, wiping away a tear from his wife's cheek when she nodded. "It's one of those cheating at parenthood with my gift secrets."

"You know I love when you cheat that way," she said with a little laugh. "I love knowing anything and everything about Lilly."

Jasper smiled and kissed her temple. "The happiest our flower is, ever, is right here. When she's laying on your warm skin with her ear right above your heart, the girl is practically made of love and happiness. Even when she's asleep, she's aware this is where she is and her contentment skyrockets. It beats all of her other pleasures by a mile. And that includes when she's breastfeeding."

Bella sniffled a few tears and cupped the back of her daughter's head. "Are you lying to make me feel better?"

"Have I ever lied to you before? Even to protect you from an ugly truth?" he asked. "And before you answer, I'd like to remind you that I admitted to plotting your murder after the van incident."

Bella tried to laugh quietly and gently to keep from jostling Lilly, but she wasn't all that successful. Fortunately their girl was a good sleeper and slept through her resting place shaking. "Thank you, hon. I know you don't lie, I do, my brain is just a pretty yuck place right now."

"Want to talk about it?" he whispered.

Bella tore her eyes away from Lilly and looked up at her husband. "Don't you already know?"

"I know what you're feeling, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it at some point," he answered. "I haven't pushed because I don't have the right to make you talk about something you're not ready to talk about just because my gift gives me an advantage."

Bella sighed as her eyes welled up again. "I don't like how I feel. I don't like feeling envious of the people I love most in the world. It makes me feel… mean and small. But I am envious. I don't want to miss time because I'm asleep, or miss a moment because I'm too busy yawning to see it."

Jasper held the two a little bit closer, relieved his wife was finally talking. He'd been worried about her for days but didn't feel like his gift gave him the right to question her. Just because Bella was his mate and wife, that didn't mean he was entitled to her innermost thoughts. Especially when she was working so hard to keep them private.

"So I can tell you a couple things I know and we can take it from there. Before I do, I just want to remind you that you never have to struggle alone. I take my vows seriously, and I vowed to always do my best to keep you safe and happy. If you ever want to talk with no one listening, just ask and we can either tell everyone to take a hike, or me, you, and the little miss here can go somewhere just the three of us. Okay? Nothing and no one are more important than the two of you."

Bella nodded and sniffled a few more times. "I know."

"Good. So here's what I know. The first is that the very parts of you that are causing you upset and frustration are the very things Lilly finds comfort in. Your warm, soft skin and your heartbeat. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you she's always happiest right here. So while yes, I have the advantage of not needing sleep, your very real humanity - and I mean that literally, not just Carlisle's stupid interpretation - is the true advantage. Human beats vamp hands-down when it comes to offering comfort to an infant."

"She loves when you're holding her," Bella pointed out with a smile. "And those hand thingies Rose got are great."

"They are," Jasper nodded. "And she does love when I hold her, but she's always happiest in her mama's arms. That may be no different if you were changed. Being in your arms when they're chillier and with no heartbeat to hear, she may be just as content because they're your arms. I can't know the answer to that beforehand. But that leads me to the other thing I know. Peter got intuition recently about your change. Apparently, and if I didn't love you so much I might find this severely aggravating, you're going to just skip right on past your newborn phase and be a proper grown-up vamp with control and manners right out of the gate."

Bella looked up at him in surprise, then laughed a little at the glare he gave her. "Sorry, that must be super annoying. Did you call me all kinds of mean names in your head when he told you?"

"Only a few," Jasper laughed.

"I'm really not gonna be all… bloodlusty and rageful?" she asked.

"Apparently you smell humans on your very first hunt and you don't immediately cause a bloodbath," he answered, adding a quiet 'bitch' at the end to make Bella laugh.

"I'm sorry, hon. That feels really unfair to the rest of you."

"It is," he nodded. "It really, really is. But like I said, I love you an awful lot so I'm inclined to forgive you."

"Huh. Well, that's definitely food for thought. But I want to breastfeed Lilly for at least six months," she said. "I want her to have at least that long solely on breast milk. So any talk of changing can be put on hold for a good while."

"That's sort of what I thought you'd say," he nodded. "For now, you know you can always ask for my help, right? If your coffee's not doin' the trick, all you have to do is ask and I'll give you a boost. Or if you want to try and sleep only when Lilly's sleeping, I can use my gift to keep you out while she is and wake you up when she wakes. We can find a solution to just about every problem, but we can't do that if you don't talk about it."

"I know," Bella said, sniffling back a few tears of gratitude. "These baby blues are just a real pain in the ass and they make it harder to think logically."

"The doctor said there are safe antidepressants, so if you get to a place where that makes sense, please don't bottle it up. Talk to me. Or talk to Esme or Rose. Talk to any of us. No one wants to see you struggling if there's an easy, safe solution for both you and Lilly. And there's not a single member of this family who would think there's anything wrong with you if you end up trying medication. We all need a little help from time to time. Us vamps just happen to have the misfortune of not finding ours in a bottle at the pharmacy."

Bella looked at him a little skeptically.

"Honest to god, sweetheart," he promised. "Pick a member of the family."

"What?" she asked in confusion.

"Name someone in the family."

"Uh… Rose?" she said, totally confused about what was happening. And then she sucked in a sharp breath as Jasper started letting her feel different emotions. There was love and pride and gratitude, then a good amount of respect, and it tapered off with appreciation and a little more love. "What was that?" she whispered, eyes wide.

"Rosalie's feelings for you every time she watches you with Lilly. Every time you hold her or breastfeed her or change her diaper. Every time you whisper in her ear or soothe her. She is never not filled with pride, respect, and appreciation when she watches you. Along with a good amount of love and gratitude. And Rosalie's emotions are strikingly similar to those felt by every member of this family. Without fail and across the board, pride, respect, and appreciation are topmost for everyone when they're watching you be a new mom. The love and gratitude are also consistent."

She blinked away her tears but they were replaced by new ones too quickly to keep them from falling. "That's…" Bella had to stop at that because the relief she felt at not being a failure as a mother was so profound that she started sobbing.

Jasper carefully picked up Lilly and laid her in the nice cozy nest bassinet - not awful like the hospital one - beside the bed, and then pulled his wife into his arms to hold her together while she fell apart.

After that night, things slowly got a little bit better for Bella. She had a little more faith in herself, and gave less attention to the voice in her head that was telling her she was doing everything wrong. Knowing her husband and family had faith in her went a long way to keep that voice from getting too loud.

She also started having Jasper coordinate her sleep with Lilly's. For five days, she was only awake when the baby was, and because Lilly slept about sixteen hours a day, Bella was getting more sleep than she had in as long as she could remember, even if it wasn't a continuous stretch of solid sleep. And rather than tossing and turning, Jasper had her sleeping within minutes of getting under the covers, and kept her sleeping soundly.

After those five days, any time Lilly was asleep between the hours of eleven pm and nine am, so was Bella. She stayed awake more during the day, though she still tended to take a short nap or two during a time Lilly was napping.

Just getting proper, restorative sleep made a big difference in her mood. Not being exhausted meant she wasn't nodding off on the couch or yawning into a cup of coffee, which meant she didn't feel like she was missing anything. That, in turn, made some of her envy for her family slowly disappear. There would probably always be a part of her that wished she could easily stand and rock a crying infant for hours on end the way they could, but she didn't feel like they were getting experiences with Lilly that she was missing because of her human need to sleep.

She was still dealing with the baby blues, but it started feeling a bit less crushing.

It was interesting to both new parents that much of what they'd expected before Lilly came into the world didn't end up being what worked out after.

Pretty much the whole family thought Lilly's favorite person after her parents would be one of the other humans or Esme. Instead, it was Peter.

Peter, they assumed, was going to be the best uncle imaginable only after Lilly was a few years old, when she could be his partner in crime. Instead, the dude was calm and patient and loving from the first moment he held her. Months and months before she was born, Jasper had teased Peter that he'd be wrapped right along with him on Lilly's finger, and that had proved true. But being wrapped around Lilly's finger seemed to settle something inside Peter in a way that surprised everyone. He was calmness personified.

Paul, they thought, was going to be the least involved wolf. Neither really knew why they thought that, just that they did. He turned out to be Lilly's favorite wolf. When their too-hot temperature didn't bother her, he was generally the one she was happiest with.

Esme was definitely right up there at the top of Lilly's favorites, and she was always there for Bella and Jasper with support and advice, but she was never pushy about giving that advice and she never assumed she knew best.

The whole family had assumed Rosalie would try to snag any baby time that wasn't filled by mama and daddy. Not in an overbearing way, just being eager to bond with their little darlin' - as Jasper and Peter called Lilly. That turned out not to be the case.

Jasper knew Rosalie felt a little disgruntled at first that Lilly usually settled best for Peter if neither parent was available, not that it happened often. She hid it well, though. Without his gift, Jasper would've never known her feelings were a little hurt.

After a little while, Rose focused less on the baby and more on Bella. She knew her sister inside and out, and knew Bella was struggling emotionally, so she did everything she could to try and ease the burden on her. Sometimes it was as simple as quietly sitting with her while she nursed or laying next to her while she took a nap.

She was a solid, dependable presence for Bella, and she always made sure Bella knew how proud of her she was. New motherhood wasn't what Rose had pictured in her mind for all those many decades, and her respect for Bella grew as she watched her navigate a new and bumpy road.

So things hadn't turned out the way they'd all predicted, but they muddled through and did what the Whitlocks seemed to excel at - supporting and loving each other, and rallying around any member of the family who needed to do a little extra leaning.

It was about four weeks after the baby was born that a simple thing none of them had thought of started really turning things around for Bella.

She and Jasper were cuddled on the couch one afternoon, staring at a sleeping Lilly. Even asleep, Lilly was fascinating to them. They could stare and stare for hours and never get bored.

Peter came in the living room with a small package and a big smile. It was still a little surprising to them that Peter was Lilly's favorite person after Bella and Jasper. They'd both assumed it would be Angela or Gianna, who felt the most similar to her mama, or one of the wolves, who at least had body heat and a heartbeat. But no, Lillian Charlotte Whitlock loved her Uncle Peter.

"Why are you so pleased with yourself?" Jasper whispered.

"I'm about to make your wife a happy woman, which means I'm about to make you an even happier man," Peter answered, handing the box to Bella.

"A baby wrap?" she asked curiously as she opened it.

Peter nodded, then spoke in a quiet voice. "I know sometimes you get frustrated that we can hold and rock that little darlin' longer than you because your arms get tired or your back starts hurting. This keeps her tucked up perfectly against her very favorite person. Right above your heart that she loves listening to. And you can breastfeed her when she's in this and still keep yourself covered without covering her in that blanket thing she hates. There's benefits for Lilly, too. Moms said their babies cried less, slept better, and it helps with colic, whatever that is. Oh, and less projectile vomiting. Always a win in my book," he explained. "Will you try it? I've researched the fu…dge out of it and found the very best for safety, mama's comfort, and overall customer satisfaction. I've watched about seventy-three videos on how to wrap and tie it and I'm almost sure I have it right."

"Only seventy-three?" Bella laughed. "Didn't want those last two to get you three-quarters of the way to a hundred?"

"My goal was a hundred, honestly, but then I started gettin' annoyed because I kept coming across videos of people who use this for their pets," he said, shaking his head. "Which, whatever, you've got a needy animal, cool, glad this helps you. That doesn't help me, however, so I finally said fu…dge it."

Bella and Jasper both smiled at him. Quitting swearing was a whole lot harder than they'd thought it would be. And they'd been practicing for months. But 'damn' came out about eighty-nine times more often than darn or dang, and 'fuck' rolled off the tongue a whole lot more easily than fudge.

"Alright," Bella said as she hauled herself to her feet. "Show me how it works."

Peter wrapped the fabric a few times, tucked a couple things, and tied a knot or two, and then he carefully picked his little Lilly up and tucked her in it. Perfect, he thought, nodding to himself. She was snug as a bug, in her favorite little curled up ball, right over her mama's heart.

Bella eyes shot up to Peter's. "My back doesn't hurt," she whisper-shouted. "And look," she added, then held her arms out and away from her body. Lilly was perfectly secure, still in her very favorite position on her very favorite person, tucked just as snug to her body as she would be if Bella was holding her.

"Walk around, see how it feels," Peter said with a smile.

Bella put her hands on Lilly's little tushy and bounced gently a few times, but Lilly's position didn't slip at all. She took her hands away and bounced again. Still in position. Bella walked around the living room, then again, then again.

Seeing the beaming smile on his wife's face, Jasper launched himself at Peter and tackled him in the tightest hug he could give him and practically flooded the man with his gratitude, startling a very loud laugh out of Peter.

Which startled a very loud cry out of Lilly.

Bella cupped the back of her head on the outside of the wrap, shushed her a few times, gently bounced a time or two, and Lilly settled right back to sleep.

"You know," Bella said as she walked back to the couch. "If I wasn't happily married, and you weren't happily mated, I might be tempted to kiss you, Peter Whitlock."

Peter smiled and turned his cheek to her, and Bella leaned down and left a loud, smacking kiss on his face.

"How did we not think of this?" Jasper asked as he pulled his wife and daughter into his lap.

No one had an answer to that. They were all learning as they went, just like so many new parents. Esme had a baby as a human, but he sadly hadn't lived long enough for her to really parent a baby. She was the only one in the whole family with parenting experience. And both of Bella's parents were gone, so she couldn't even go to them for advice.

They'd all had a little too much fun in the first week, when any time there was an infant question, everyone in the room would immediately turn to Jasper.

He was so confused the first time it happened. "Uh, why are y'all staring at me like I should know the answer to that?" he'd asked.

"Aren't you the newborn expert?" Rosalie had answered, making everyone who wasn't Jasper crack up.

One of the things Bella had struggled with was figuring out how the pre-baby Bella fit with this new Mama Bella. She'd lived a pretty full life before Lilly was born. They had a huge family who was always up to something. She loved sitting by the pasture and cheering on anyone sparring or wrestling, she'd become accustomed to taking long walks with one or more of the wolves, she cooked nearly every day, she cleaned and did laundry, read, went into town… she had a full, active life.

Her first few weeks as a mom, just about everything fell by the wayside. Between time she had to stay in bed post-labor, the blues that wouldn't leave her be, and her exhaustion, all she seemed to manage was taking care of Lilly. Jasper and the rest of the family took care of Bella so Bella could take care of the baby. All of the things that Bella found pleasure in before Lilly arrived felt out of reach.

Some of that, she knew, was her mental state being a dick. She got that.

But there were times when only Bella's arms would do the trick for their girl. There may have been loads of arms available, but sometimes a girl just needs her mama and no one else would do. Lilly loved Jasper's arms nearly as much as Bella's, but Lilly wasn't always so sure about the rest of the family.

Peter, generally, could be a reliable stand-in if Lilly wanted her daddy and he was unavailable - they were similarly built, had the same accent, and smelled similar - but everyone else was hit or miss.

The wolves could feel too hot, the vamps too cold. Angela and Gianna were sometimes acceptable, other times not. Even with a big family, all of whom wanted to be as helpful as possible, Lilly was still very, very new to the world. The human world. That was a big enough adjustment without adding in the supernatural.

The only reason they could come up with that Lilly was happy with Jasper from day one was because he'd been part of her life in such a big way when she was growing inside her mama. From way back in the beginning, when they were still in Italy, Jasper talked to her about anything and everything. While Bella slept, Jasper would have one-sided conversations with her stomach. Almost every single night. So for as long as Lilly could hear, she heard Jasper's voice.

After Peter brought her the baby wrap, Bella's life started looking slightly more similar to life pre-baby.

She could take walks with the vamps and wolves without her arms or shoulders or back hurting, Lilly tucked up snug against her chest. She'd missed cooking more than she ever dreamed she would, and now she could cook meals again without having to put the baby down, although she stayed away from the stove when Lilly was swaddled to her chest.

Breastfeeding, too, had kept her feeling a little too tied to her bedroom or the nursery. She'd bought something so she could breastfeed and keep herself covered, but Lilly absolutely hated it. The baby was, for the most part, a very happy little thing. Few things really got her upset. That was one of them. She screamed bloody murder the couple times Bella tried it. And screaming bloody murder is not conducive to nursing.

So, Bella tended to only feed the baby in their bedroom or the nursery. Which amounts to an awful lot of time spent in those two rooms when you had a baby who sometimes liked to nurse every two hours.

With the wrap sling, it could be positioned in a way that Lilly could nurse, Bella could keep herself covered, and Lilly wouldn't scream loud enough and long enough to make all the vamps aside from Jasper disappear.

So by the end of August, life was slowly improving for Bella. It became life with Lilly, rather than a life of only Lilly.

Slowly but surely, the unconditional love and unwavering support of her family, along with something as simple as a baby sling, helped ease Bella's baby blues. What started out feeling as dark navy as the midnight sky began slowly lightening up until they eventually started to resemble the soft pale blue of a sunny summer afternoon.