CHAPTER EIGHT:

Bella's POV:

I paced up and down the bathroom, my hands balled into fists at my sides. Edward had ended up joining me in the shower, mostly to pick the feathers out of my hair, and then tell me that he wouldn't make love to me again, until I was Turned. I didn't know what to feel- angry? Upset? Disappointed?

All of the above?

I'd be hurt too, if I didn't understand him so well. He was so terrified of hurting me, so terrified of what he was, that he couldn't bring himself to trust, well, himself.

I fished through the bag of toiletries, looking for a hairbrush, and came across what looked like a tub filled with some sort of cream. Frowning, I picked it up, turning it around in my hand to try and figure out what it was. I started blushing when I caught the label, scrawled on in Hermione's tiny, neat handwriting- Bruise Paste.

I unscrewed it, and slathered the paste all over my skin, hoping that it would get rid of the bruises, otherwise they'd be worse tomorrow, and that certainly wouldn't make things any easier.

After brushing out my hair, I dressed in an unfamiliar white cotton dress that concealed the worst of the bruises, then padded off barefoot to where the smell of eggs and bacon and cheddar cheese was coming from.

Edward was standing in front of the stainless steel stove, sliding an omelet onto a light blue plate. The scent of the food overwhelmed me. I felt like I could eat the plate and the frying pan, too, in that moment. "Here," he said. He turned with a smile on his face and set the plate on a small, tiled table.

He sat down across from me as I started scarfing down the hot eggs. They burned my throat, but I didn't care. "I'm not feeding you often enough." I swallowed and reminded him,

"I was asleep. Besides, I'm a grown woman, I don't need you to feed me. These are really good, by the way," I added, "impressive for someone who doesn't eat."

"Food Network," he chuckled, flashing my favorite crooked smile.

I ate everything, even though he'd made enough for two, before pushing the plate away, and looking up. "So, what's the plan for today?"

-

My entertainment became the number one priority on Isle Esme. We snorkeled- well, I snorkeled while he flaunted his ability to go without oxygen indefinitely. We explored the small jungle that ringed the rocky little peak. We visited the parrots that lived in the canopy on the south of the island. We watched the sunset from the rocky western cove. We swam with the porpoises that played in the warm, shallow waters- well, again, I did, but when Edward was in the water, the porpoises disappeared as if a shark was near.

I wasn't an idiot, I knew what was going on- he was trying to keep me busy, distracted, so I wouldn't continue to badger him about the sex thing. Whenever I tried to talk him into taking it easy with one of the million DVDs under the big-screen plasma TV, he would lure me out of the house with magic words like 'coral reefs', and 'submerged caves' and 'sea turtles'. We were going, going, going all day, so that I found myself completely famished and exhausted when the sun eventually set.

I drooped over my plate after I finished dinner every night; once I'd actually fallen asleep right at the table and he'd had to carry me to bed. Part of it was that Edward always made too much food for one, but I was so hungry after swimming and climbing all day that I ate most of it. Then, full and worn out, I could barely keep my eyes open. All part of the plan, no doubt.

But exhaustion didn't get in the way of my attempts at persuasion. I refused to give up- I tried reasoning, pleading and grouching, all to no avail. I was usually unconscious before I could really press my case far. And then my dreams felt so real- nightmares, mostly, made more vivid, I guessed, by the bright colors of the island- that I woke up tired, no matter how long I slept.

About a week or so after we'd gotten to the island, honestly, it was hard to keep track of time here, I tried a new angle- I took to wearing some of Alice's lingerie collection to sleep in at night. I wondered if she'd seen a vision of why I would want such things, and then shuddered, embarrassed at the thought.

I'd started out slow, with innocent ivory satins, the bruises long gone, having vanished within twelve

hours of applying the bruise paste, before moving on to purples and reds, with more lace then satin.

Tonight, I'd chosen one of the scarier pieces- the lingerie she'd given me at my bachelorette party. Bordelle, I think she called it. It was silky and lacy and embarrassing to look at even when it wasn't on, and I was careful not to look in the mirror before I went back into the bedroom, knowing if I did, I'd lose my nerve.

I had the satisfaction of watching Edward's eyes pop for a second before he could control his expression, and, a new sense of confidence washing over me, I spun around, pirouetting so that he could see every angle. "What do you think?" I asked.

He cleared his throat. "You look beautiful. You always do."

"Oh thanks," I huffed, climbing quickly into the soft bed. He put his arms around me and pulled me against his chest, but this was routine- it was too hot to sleep without his cool body close. I yawned, heavily. "God," I mumbled, "for as tired as I've been, and thanks for that by the way, you'd think I'd sleep better."

"What?" Edward sounded confused, "you've been sleeping like the dead, Bella. You haven't said a word in your sleep since we got here. If it weren't for the snoring, I'd worry you were slipping into a coma."

I refused to deign the snoring jibe with a response, instead concentrated on the other half of what he'd just said "I haven't been tossing? That's weird. Usually I'm all over the bed when I'm having nightmares. And shouting."

"You've been having nightmares?"

"Vivid ones," I sigh, "They make me so tired. I can't believe I haven't been babbling about them all night."

"What are they about?"
"Different things- but the same, you know, because of the colors." I explain. "Colors?" he asks, and I can basically hear the frown in his voice.

"It's all so bright and real. Usually, when I'm dreaming, I know that I am. With these, I don't know I'm asleep. It makes them scarier." I admit. Edward sounds disturbed when he speaks again.

"What's frightening you, my love?" I shuddered slightly, my mind straying to my dreams of late. "Mostly... the Volturi." I admit. He hugged me tighter.

"They aren't going to bother us anymore. You'll be immortal soon, and they'll have no reason." I let him comfort me, even as hopelessness washed over me. It wasn't me I was scared for, the nightmares weren't like that. It was Hermione that worried me. What the Volturi would do when they found out about her. What they might do if they found out what she was. Edward saw the desolation on my face.

"What can I do to help?" he asked, softly. I shook it off.
"They're just dreams, Edward."
"Do you want me to sing to you? I'll sing all night if it will keep the bad dreams away." He offers.

"They're not all bad. Some are nice. So... colorful. Underwater, with the fish and the coral. It all seems like it's really happening- I don't know I'm dreaming. Maybe this island is the problem. It's really bright here."

"Do you want to go home?"
"No. No, not yet. Can't we stay awhile longer?" I ask.

"We can stay as long as you want, Bella," he promised me, before he started humming under his breath. I fell asleep quickly.

The sun shone, bright and warm, above us as Edward opened my blouse slowly, twisting each button with his thumb and third finger, and then running his finger along my breastbone. When my

shirt finally fell open, he caressed my breasts. He kissed my nipples, then moved his lips slowly down her stomach. He removed my underwear, and kissed just above my pubic bone-

I awoke in the dark, and it was with shock. The dream had been so very real... so vivid, so sensory... I gasped aloud, now, disorientated by the dark room. Only a second ago, it seemed, I had been under the brilliant sun. "Bella?" Edward whispered, his arms tight around me, shaking me gently. "Are you alright, my love?"

"Oh!" I gasped again. Just a dream. Not real. To my utter astonishment, tears overflowed from my eyes without warning, gushing down my face.

"Bella!" he said- louder, alarmed now. "What's wrong?" He wiped the tears from my hot cheeks with cold, frantic fingers, but others followed.

"It was only a dream." I couldn't control the low sob that broke in my voice. The senseless tears were disturbing, but I couldn't get control of the staggering grief that gripped me. I wanted, so badly, for the dream to be real.

"It's okay, love, you're fine. I'm here." He rocked me back and forth, a little too fast to soothe. "Did you have another nightmare? It wasn't real, it wasn't real."

"Not a nightmare," I shook my head, scrubbing the back of my hand against my eyes. "It was a good dream." My voice broke again.

"Then why are you crying?" he asked, bewildered.

"Because I woke up!" I wailed, wrapping my arms around his neck in a chokehold, and sobbing into his throat. He laughed once at my logic, but the sound was tense with concern.

"Everything's all right, Bella. Take deep breaths." "It was so real," I sobbed, "I wanted it to be real!" "Tell me about it," he urged. "Maybe that will help."

"We were on the beach..." I trailed off, pulling back to look with tear-filled eyes at his anxious angel's face, dim in the darkness. I stared at him broodingly as the unreasonable grief began to ebb.

"And?" he finally prompted. "Oh, Edward..."

"Tell me, Bella," he pleaded, eyes wild with worry at the pain in my voice. But I couldn't. Instead I clutched my arms around his neck again and locked my mouth with his feverishly. It wasn't desire at all- it was need, acute to the point of pain. His response was instant, but quickly followed by his rebuff.

He struggled with me as gently as he could in his surprise, holding me away, grasping my shoulders. "No, Bella," he insisted, looking at me as if he was worried that I'd lost my mind. To be honest, it felt like his worries were founded. My arms dropped, defeated, the bizarre tears spilling in a fresh torrent down my face, a new sob rising in my throat. He was right- I must be crazy.

"I'm s-s-s-orry," I mumbled. But he pulled me to him then, hugging me tightly to his marble chest. "I can't, Bella, I can't!" His moan was agonized.

"Please," I said, my plea muffled against his skin. "Please Edward?" I couldn't tell if he was moved by the tears trembling in my voice, or if he was unprepared to deal with the suddenness of my attack, or if his need was simply as unbearable in that moment as my own. But whatever the reason, he pulled my lips back to his, surrendering with a groan.

And we began where my dream had left off. -

I stayed very still when I woke in the morning and tried to keep my breathing even. I was afraid to open my eyes.

I was lying across Edward's chest, but he was very still and his arms were not wrapped around me. That was a bad sign. I was afraid to admit I was awake and face his anger- no matter whom it was directed at today.

I carefully peeked through my eyelashes- he was staring up at the dark ceiling, his arms behind his head. I pulled myself up on my elbow so that I could see his face better. It was smooth, expressionless. "How much trouble am I in?" I asked in a small voice.

"Heaps," he said, but turned his head and smirked at me. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"I am sorry," I said. "I didn't mean... well I don't know exactly what that was last night." I shook my head at the memory of the irrational tears, the crushing grief.

"You never did tell me what your dream was about," Edward notes. I laughed nervously.

"I guess I didn't- but I sort of showed you what it was about."

"Oh," he said. His eyes widened, and then he blinked. "Interesting."

"It was a very good dream," I murmured. He didn't comment, so a few seconds later I asked, "am I forgiven?"

"I'm thinking about it." I sat up, planning to examine myself, but as I moved, an odd wave of vertigo hit. I swayed and fell back against the pillows.

"Whoa... head rush." His arms were around me then. "You slept for a long time. Twelve hours."

"Twelve?" How strange. I gave myself a quick once-over, trying to be inconspicuous about it. I looked fine. Better then fine, really. There were no new bruises, and this time much less soreness between my legs.

"The inventory complete?" Edward asked. I nodded sheepishly. Obviously I hadn't been as discrete as I thought.

"The pillows all appear to have survived."

"Unfortunately I can't say the same for your, er, I can't really call them pajamas." He nodded toward the foot of the bed, where several scraps of $8000 dollar lingerie were strewn across the sheets.

"Alice is going to kill you," I laugh, softly, before asking, "were there any other casualties?"

"I'll have to buy Esme a new bed frame," Edward confessed, glancing over his shoulder. I followed his gaze, and was shocked to see that large chunks of wood had been gouged from the left side of the headboard.

"You'd think I would have heard that."
"You seem to be extraordinarily unobservant when your attention is otherwise involved."
"I was a bit absorbed." I admit, blushing a deep red. He touched my burning cheek and sighed. "I'm really going to miss that."

I stared up at his face, searching for any sign of the anger or remorse I feared. He gazed back at me evenly, his expression calm but otherwise unreadable. "How are you feeling?" I asked, cautiously. He laughed. "What?" I demanded.

"You look so guilty- like you've committed a crime." "I feel guilty," I muttered.

"So you seduced your all-too-willing husband. That's not a capital offense." He seemed to be teasing. My cheeks got hotter.

"The word seduced implies a certain amount of premeditation." I informed him. "Maybe that was the wrong word," he allowed.
"You're not angry?" He smiled ruefully.
"I'm not angry."

"Why not?"

"Well..." he paused. "I didn't hurt you, for one thing. It was easier this time, to control myself, to channel the excess." His eyes flickered to the damaged frame again. "Maybe because I had a better idea of what to expect."

"I told you practice makes perfect." I say, smugly. He rolled his eyes. My stomach chose then to growl, and he laughed.

"Breakfast time for the human?"

"Yes please," I said, hopping out of the bed. I moved too quickly, though, and had to stager drunkenly to regain my balance." He caught me before I could stumble into the dresser.

"Are you alright?"

"If I don't have a better sense of equilibrium in my next life, I'm demanding a refund." I grumbled. My stomach gurgled again. "Can you make eggs?" I asked, hopefully. He laughed.

"Do you know how many eggs you've gone through in the last week alone?" he asked.

"This place is totally messing with my appetite." I defended myself. And my dreams. And my already dubious balance. "I need the loo- meet you in the kitchen?"

"Meet you in the kitchen." He agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of my head, before exiting the bedroom. I smiled after him, before making my way to the bathroom.

I did my business, before searching through my toiletry bag for a new tube of toothpaste I'd run out. But before I found the toothpaste, I happened across something else that Alice, or more likely Hermione, had packed. I picked up the small blue box and stared at it in my hand for a long moment, forgetting everything else. Then I started counting in my head. Once. Twice. Again.

The knock startled me; the little box falling back into the toiletry bag. "Bella? Are you okay?" Edward asked through the door.

"Yes and no." My voice was strangled, and Edward's voice was automatically worried. "Bella? Can I please come in?"

"O...kay?" He came in and appraised my position, frozen hunched over the sink, my expression blank and staring. He was next to me at once.

"What's wrong?"
"How many days has it been since the wedding?" I whispered.

"Seventeen." He answered, automatically. "Bella, what is it?" I was counting again. I held up a finger, cautioning him to wait, and mouthed the numbers to myself. I'd been wrong about the days before. We'd been here longer than I'd thought. I started over again.

"Bella," Edward's voice was urgent, "I'm losing my mind over here- what happened?" I tried to swallow. It didn't work. So I reached into the toiletry bag and pulled out the little blue box of tampons. I held them up silently. He stared at me in confusion. "What? Are you... getting your period?"

"No," I managed to choke out. "No, Edward. I'm trying to tell you that my period is late. Six days late." His facial expression didn't change. If I wasn't so terrified, I'd laugh. "I've never been late before in my life!" My voice is rising, an edge of hysteria entering it. He didn't respond- he had turned into a sculpture. "Oh god, the dreams," I mumbled to myself, in a flat voice. "Sleeping so much. The crying. All that food. Oh. Oh. Oh."

Edward's stare seemed glassy, as if he couldn't see me anymore. Reflexively, almost involuntarily, my hand dropped to my stomach. "Oh!" I squeaked, feeling the impossibility. I lurched out of Edward's unmoving hands, stepping back to get a better look at my bare stomach. "I-impossible!" I whispered.

I had no experience with pregnancy or babies or any part of that world, besides Teddy, but I wasn't an idiot. I knew enough to know that this wasn't how it worked. I was only six days late. If I was pregnant, my body wouldn't have even registered that fact. I would not have changed my eating or sleeping habits. And I most definitely would not have a small but defined bump sticking out between my hips, so obvious now that I was looking at it.

"Impossible." I repeated, because- bulge or no bulge, period or no period- and there was definitely no period- there was no way I could be pregnant! The only person I'd ever had sex with was a vampire, for crying out loud! A vampire who was still frozen with no sign of ever moving again.

"Edward," I grabbed his arm with the hand that wasn't resting on the bump on my stomach that had not been there yesterday, "Edward!" When he still didn't move, didn't even respond, I staggered into the bedroom, to where the shiny silver cellphone was resting on the bedside table. I rang Carlisle's number with shaking fingers. He picked up on the first ring.

"Edward?"

"Um, it's Bella."

"Bella?" his voice was surprised now. "What's going on?"

"I-" I wasn't sure how to answer. Would he laugh at my conclusions, tell me I was crazy? Was I just having another colorful dream? "I'm a little worried about Edward... can vampires go into shock?"

"Has he been harmed?" Carlisle's voice was suddenly urgent. "No, no," I assured him. "Just... taken by surprise."
"I don't understand, Bella."

"I think... well, I think that... maybe... I might be..." I took a deep breath. "Pregnant." As if to back me up, there was a tiny, impossible nudge in my abdomen. My hand flew to my stomach. After a long pause, Carlisle's medical training kicked in.

"When was the first day of your last menstrual cycle?" "Seventeen days before the wedding."
"How do you feel?"

"Weird," I told him, and my voice broke. Another trickle of tears dribbled down my cheeks. "This is going to sound crazy- look, I know it's way too early for any of this. Maybe I am crazy. But I'm having bizarre dreams and eating all the time, sleeping all the time, crying and... and... I swear something just moved inside me just now!" Suddenly Edward was beside me, holding out his hand, his face white and hard. "Um, I think Edward wants to talk to you."

"Put him on," Carlisle said in a strained voice. I put the phone in Edward's outstretched hand and he pressed it to his ear.

"Is it possible?" He listened for a long time, staring blankly at nothing. "And Bella?" he asked, finally. His arm wrapped around me, pulling me to his side. As he listened, I held my stomach, unable to think properly, and let my thoughts wander. While I waited, a vision danced behind my eyelids. A tiny, beautiful little baby with Edward's eyes, green like they'd been when he was human- a tiny Edward in my arms. A sudden warmth shot through my veins, chasing the ice away.

"Yes," Edward said, suddenly, "yes I will." He pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed end. "What did Carlisle say?" I asked, impatiently. Edward answered in a lifeless voice.

"He thinks you're pregnant." The words sent a warm shiver down my spine. The little nudger fluttered inside me, and a tear trickled down my cheek. "Don't be afraid," Edward was suddenly frantic, his cold fingers wiping away the tear. I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn't, that I was crying because I was happy, when he said this: "You'll be fine. Carlisle will be ready when we get there. We'll take care of this, and you'll be fine, you'll be fine."

"Take care of this? What do you mean?" I asked, confused. Edward pulled me against his chest.

"We're going to get that thing out before it can hurt any part of you."