Bella stared at the two lines on the test in her hands. She blinked and almost shook the thing, but there was no denying what was in front of her or how she'd been feeling the last couple of weeks. If the test was wrong, what other explanation was there for the bloating and indigestion, that weird metallic taste in her mouth that wouldn't go away, and the constant ache in her chest? Not to mention the new aversion to alcohol she'd discovered when Jenn offered her a Jack and Coke after work the previous night.

Speaking of Jenn, her roommate would be banging on the bathroom door soon. Bella could smell the coffee already, and it wasn't very pleasant. Oh, God! Her roommate! There were still six months left on the lease, and who wants a pregnant lady in their apartment all the time? But where would she go? She couldn't move in with the father.

The father. If there was a father, that would make her a mother. Bella could not be a mother, could she? A mother. To a real, live human baby. The tears flowed out before she could stop them.

There was the knock she'd been waiting for.

"Hurry up, Bee! I gotta pee!" Jenn whined from the other side of the door.

Bella turned the knob to let her in.

"What are you doing, weird– oh, shit!"

Now, they were both staring at those two lines.

Bella tried to stay for the rest of their lease, but it wasn't Jenn who couldn't handle her – it was Bella who couldn't handle anything. She woke up crying, she cried at work, and she cried in her room at night. Every time someone came to visit Jenn and they smelled like smoke or weed, Bella panicked and pictured her baby's little brain twisting and shriveling up in real time. Every time she shuffled out to the kitchen for some snacks and saw her roommate cuddled up with her boyfriend, she beat herself up for being that girl who couldn't keep a guy and ended up getting knocked up by a stranger.

At first, she tried to find the guy so he would know he had a child, but there was no luck. She'd only known his first name (Steve, he'd told her), and nobody else had known him. He was probably from out of town or something. She even humiliated herself by posting in a local Facebook group to see if anyone could help her get in touch; all she got out of that were some vile messages and comments from Jacksonville's finest judges.

After four months of misery, her roommate and her mother, Renee, teamed up to move her back home. Her friend insisted it was fine, she would be able to rent her room, and she was more worried about her health than the rent. Her mother told her that Phil, her stepfather, was fully on board for grandpa duty. Bella didn't have the energy to argue with anyone.

Throughout the rest of her pregnancy, Bella just existed. She wasn't excited, but she was deeply protective of her baby from the start, so she took care of herself, read the books, watched the videos; she even held her nose and took the free prenatal classes at the weird church down the road.

Eliza Charlotte Swan came into the world babbling away at 7:23 PM on April 29, 2007, and for the very first time in years, Bella associated the word "love" with someone other than Edward Cullen.

The oxytocin high came down quickly, though. After a beautiful few hours of sleeping and nursing, she was alone again, and the latch that felt so natural with a nurse by her side was confusing, and then frustrating, as the hours without sleep ticked on. Eliza's noises grew more and more shrill as her hunger increased, and Bella became more and more hopeless.

By the time Charlie sauntered in with a coffee in hand and a tea for her in the other, she was in angry tears. He set them down and rushed to her side.

"Hey, hey," he said softly. He seemed unsure of what to do with his hands and patted her head. "What's going on, Bells? Everything OK?"

She tried to speak but just sputtered, and when the words finally came, Charlie had to work to decipher them.

"No, it's not OK! My baby hates me, and my stupid body doesn't make stupid milk, and I don't know what I'm doing, and the nurse–" she hiccupped. "The nurse, she said–"

A sob seemed to rip from her, and Charlie gently lifted the baby from her arms.

"Whatever she said, it's going to be OK, kiddo."

Bella sniffled, and took a deep breath, trying to gather the courage to say it out loud, and admit it really happened.

"She asked when 'dad' was coming back, and when I said, 'No dad,' she just made this noise, with her nose in the air. She only talked to tell me to do this or that, and I just—Ugh! I don't know!"

Her face felt hot and she couldn't look back up at her father. Charlie shifted his granddaughter into one of his arms and wrapped the other around his crying daughter, and sat without a word until Bella's sobs finally subsided.

The first weeks were hard, and the following months were even harder. If the Cullens had made Bella feel unworthy before, holding the weight of her daughter's future in her unskilled hands made their departure feel like a self-esteem booster. She was so determined to do better than her mother had and to avoid every possible mistake, that she was driving herself crazy. A phone call with Charlie made her realize this wasn't normal.

"So, I was talking with Sue the other day. You know, Harry's wife?" Charlie started.

Bella nodded into the receiver and then remembered that Charlie couldn't see her.

"I know her. Is everything OK?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah, everything's good. But she was asking how you were, and I said I honestly didn't know. You know, because you talk about the baby, and I love that, Bells, I really do. When you talk about her, it's like you're you again. But with anything else, it's still like you haven't really woken up yet, you know?"

"Dad, I–" Bella croaked. Her cheeks felt hot and she could feel the stinging in her eyes start again. She couldn't finish the sentence.

"Hey, listen, you don't need to tell your old man everything," he coughed. "I mean, you can. I'm always here. But if you don't want to, you know? Well, anyway, I'm thinking maybe you should tell your doctor what I said about that and see what she says, alright?"

Bella sniffed. "I can do that, Charlie."

And she did. They tried a few medications before they found one that didn't make Bella feel like a passenger in her own body, but when she finally did, she was almost back right away. Something about Sue Clearwater being the catalyst for her father to reach out about his concerns made her think about nursing, and whether it could be a path for her.

Sue had been a nurse as far back as Bella could remember, and she always felt like her caring but competent nature was something to aspire to. And Bella was used to helping others – she even liked it when they really needed it. Her grades in high school hadn't been great in the last year, though; she almost hadn't graduated on time. When she weighed her options, a Nursing Assistant program seemed to be the answer.

It was difficult going to school, working part-time, and leaving Eliza with Phil and Renee for so many hours a day. She started classes right in the thick of her four-month sleep regression, and as soon as that resolved itself, she was cutting teeth. Bella could barely keep her eyes open most nights and often fell asleep with the baby in one arm and a textbook in the other. In an unusual twist, Renee was the one to catch this most of the time, and remove Eliza to lay her down in a safer spot.

Renee cried at Bella's graduation. She cried when she got her first job. She cried even harder when they packed up Bella's '92 Civic and moved six whole blocks away to her new apartment.

The first time Bella made a trip back to Forks with Eliza, her mother was nearly hysterical. Bella was never more grateful for Phil than she was that day, as he calmed Renee down and gently redirected her attention when she started to ramble about engine malfunctions, air pressure changes, or kidnappers lurking around every corner, ready to grab her perfect little grandchild.

Traveling alone with her toddler for the first time was a real challenge, from the moment their first plane took off until she locked eyes with her father in the small Port Angeles airport. Just a few minutes into the drive back to Charlie's, Eliza was out cold, and Bella followed shortly, only opening her eyes again when he was gently shaking her shoulder in his driveway.

Air travel got easier every time—except for poor Eliza's little ears, which never stopped bothering her—and so did the time in Forks. The memories of barbecues with the Blacks, fish fry on the Rez, and playground dates with Angela and her little ones slowly overshadowed those of Edward and the Cullens.

Of course, they never went away completely, which Bella learned the hard way one summer when Eliza was seven and ran into the woods after a squirrel. By the time Bella reached the tree line, she couldn't see her anymore, and the panic that set in was only amplified when she tripped over a root and fell into the mud, just as she had when chasing Edward all those years before. She felt cold, numb, and worthless as she lay on the ground, breathing through the pain in her knee and her chest, until a sound cut through the air.

"Mom!"

It was her daughter's voice, scared but determined – she knew that tone – and it was coming from further in the trees, to the right. Unlike her last time back here, Bella got herself up, calmed herself down, and shouted for help as she followed after Eliza.

The years went by, and their visits continued. Whether it was over the holidays or in spring or summer, it was an increasingly welcome break from the heat and humidity in Florida. Eliza turned out to love fishing with Charlie, Billy Black, and Harry Clearwater, whereas Bella had only tolerated it for her dad's sake.

The first time they returned after Harry's heart attack was bittersweet, but life went on. Billy's daughter Rachel and her husband, Paul, had a girl around Eliza's age – Brianne – and they picked up their friendship like no time had passed between visits. His son Jacob eventually married and had his own children. Seth and Leah Clearwater were around, especially now that their mother and Bella's father were spending more and more time together.

But now, her little girl was growing up, and the next trip Eliza planned to take to Washington would be all on her own—and permanent. Well, as permanent as four years feels to an eighteen-year-old heading off to college.

Bella tried to remember how hard it was to watch Renee sputter and cry when she left, so she kept herself together at the airport. With a promise to see her again when she came up for Christmas, Bella Swan watched her baby disappear through security and out toward her flight.