The beach fire hissed, slowly dying. A warm salty wind blew Bella's hair back over her shoulder. She lifted her face to taste the myriad of smells peppering the wind. She would miss the smell of the wind when her baby was born. But she wouldn't miss the stench of monsters that clung to every part of her memories.

"She can't be pregnant," Edward's voice had become almost a roar that night, edged with fury until she was afraid he'd break under the force of it. "We're dead, Jasper. No heart, no blood, no tears,"

"Edward—"

"—no bodily fluids of any kind."

"So, no baby gravy." Emmett supplied, cracking a grim smile. Edward's fist cracked against his chin, and he fell back under the force.

Jasper only just managed to get between them. "This solves nothing," he said through gritted teeth. "Alice will have seen this. She'll send Carlisle."

"If she'd seen this, she would've told me," Edward growled.

"We should wait for Carlisle."

Bella had stumbled back to her seat, still holding her spoon of peanut butter, forcing herself to take measured, controlled breaths, using the square breathing Sue Clearwater had taught her to help control her panic attacks. Her mind raced.

She was pregnant. It was the only thing that made sense. How could she be pregnant? She and Edward had only—once. Just the one time—But she was pregnant.

"We only mated once, if you can even call it that,"

She was only nineteen. And she was pregnant. Oh God, Charlie was going to kill her. And Renée was going to murder whatever her father left behind.

"I smelled it then, I thought I smelled him on her."

How could she be pregnant? Vampires couldn't have children. They simply couldn't. How could—

"The wolf."

Oh. Oh no. No, no, no. Oh God, she was pregnant. What had she done?

"It's not just on her skin," Edward spit the words, jealousy and pain, betrayal and disbelief coloring them. "It's inside her."

"Babies usually are," Carlisle's calm tenor floated over the scene. He was carrying his black physician's bag. Of course Alice had sent him. "Excuse us." His tone brooked no argument from his coven. Jasper, Emmett and Edward slunk back into the night as Carlisle pulled on a pair of blue gloves. Bella had seen the truth in his face before his quick assessment of her was concluded. "Bella," he laid a gentle gloved hand on her arm. She gasped, feeling the burning icy touch through the thin latex. Carlisle flinched back, his mouth set in a grim line. He dug in his bag and held out two white pregnancy tests. "These will only take four minutes," he said. "We best be certain."

At the time it felt like everything was breaking apart. She hadn't realized how broken her life already was. She learned the hard way that sometimes things have to be re-broken so they can heal straight. She hadn't slept that night, the tests sitting on her nightstand, two bright pink lines blazed across them.

"We made a huge mistake," Bella had sobbed into the phone after.

Alone with her raging thoughts, and the reality of her choice churning in her gut, she'd grabbed the nearest phone and dialed the only number her fingers remembered. Jacob's. She thought she didn't want him to answer until he didn't. But Sue Clearwater did. Bella ought to have pressed her lips together, thanked her politely, and hung up. Instead, everything came pouring out of her, like an infection from a lanced wound. She told the older woman everything, Sue listening without interruption. Even when Bella's words melted into heaving sobs, she still listened and waited. When Bella finally quieted, feeling drained and spent, the woman had taken a breath and spoken so softly.

"Did Jacob know?"

"No." The word was half a sob. "I didn't know until today. How could I do this to him?" She didn't know if the 'him' she meant was Edward or Jacob. "How could I be so, so,"

"Human."

And for the first time that word shone like a gentle boon and a gift instead of a weight and a curse. Bella was human and she'd done a very human thing.

"I broke his heart." This time she knew she meant Jacob. Edward's heart couldn't be broken in the same way. He didn't quite have one. "And now," she stopped, choking again on her words.

"And now you must choose."

She thought she had chosen, when she chose an undying eternity with Edward. But her real choice had been six weeks before, with Jake, in his mother's cabin, three days before her wedding. She couldn't take it back, and she didn't know if she wanted to.

"Is he there?"

Sue had sighed. In that slow sad sound, Bella heard her answer. Jacob was still gone.

She'd been left behind before and she'd thought it would kill her, but this was Jacob, her spring, her sun. She'd assumed he would come back eventually. But he hadn't. His leaving would eclipse every other loss, even after Edward and the Cullens left her again. That night she hadn't understood the weight of what she'd done, as everything about her fantasy world slowly fell apart. Edward was the first to go. He'd listened to Carlisle's diagnosis, his eyes and posture hardening, sharpening. Then he'd sighed heavily and turned to leave.

"Edward, wait," she'd begged. "I'm sorry. It was a mistake, I swear. I just—I can't explain it but,"

"You are not mine," he said. His expression settled into something she didn't understand. It turned her stomach almost as much as his cloying scent. "You are not Isabella Swan anymore."

"No, I'm still me, I swear it, I—"

"You are not." His eyes looked sad, and she wished again that he could cry. "The woman I wanted is gone."

"You don't want me?" The terrible echo of when he'd left in the woods rushed over her like a cold wind. "Don't do this to me again. Please, Edward."

"I did want you," he said. "And you wanted me. Until you changed."

"Then change me! Change me, and—and then I'll go back to what you want."

Edward froze, staring first at her, then turned to Carlisle. "Would that work?" He asked, sounding eager, almost hopeful.

Carlisle frowned, hesitating. "It might."

"What about the baby?" Rosalie's voice was cold and—afraid. "Wolves cannot be turned, only killed."

"It's a wolf pup," Carlisle said slowly. "Vampire venom is a deadly poison to the Quileutes."

"And Bella?" Rosalie pressed.

"She might survive the change, since she's not technically Quileute, but,"

"No," Rosalie interrupted. "She won't."

Bella had felt Carlisle's words cut into her, gutting her open, exposing the heart she's pretended wasn't there. Rosalie was right. If she were bitten now, her baby would die. And so would she. Every cell in her body screamed in terror, adrenaline hitting her veins with a pounding chorus.

Run. Run. Run! Later, she would remember it as Jacob's voice, like an echo in her head, keeping her safe. Run, Bells! Run and don't look back.

Edward had sighed again, as if he were disappointed. Bella blinked, another piece breaking off to shatter inside her. She turned and stared at each of the Cullens, one after another. They all looked the same. Disappointed. All except Rosalie. Bella knew she wouldn't have seen their expression for what it was, if Rosalie hadn't looked so different. Rosalie was glad; she smiled, and something snapped back into place inside of Bella. She knew she could let them all go. If they didn't go, she would have to run.

"We'll go," Alice said. "Give you time to decide."

"I understand." Bella's voice had sounded so odd. Flat, yet determined. For once, Alice couldn't see what she would decide. She was invisible.

"Goodbye, Isabella." Edward looked at her one last time. She watched him leave, with a mixture of despair and relief, part of her screaming as whatever bound them together finally dissolved, and the other part of her resigned to the truth. For a vampire, change was like death. She had died in Edward's eyes, because she'd changed.

"Every change, when it comes, is seen as a loss," Sue Clearwater would tell her later, as Bella tried to piece herself back together. "But in time, we all must change, like the seasons. That's what it means to live, little mother."

Edward couldn't die, he couldn't live, he couldn't change. It was a terrible thing, to live frozen. She thought vampires had everything because they were immortal. But all they possessed was knowledge without love, existing without hope, in a unending fountain of days without any real meaning. Their minds and bodies became their cage. That was the real monstrosity. She'd wept for him then, as if he'd died, letting those tears wash her clean of the lies she'd told herself. Sue sat with her as she sobbed, humming a calming Quileute lullaby.