A/N: Hello, friends. There is some medical advice given in the chap by Edward to Bella. DO NOT REPEAT IT. DO NOT FOLLOW IT. CONTACT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL (a real one, not Edward!) BEFORE GIVING A CHILD ANY MEDICATION FOR ANY REASON.

Okay, thanks.

Two chapters in one week, guys! I'm hitting my stride with this story. (We are looking at 30ish chapters, erring on the side of a few more than 30, rather than less; can't remember if I mentioned that already).

BPOV

"Okay," Jessica bursts out from the backseat of Angela's rickety Corolla. "I can't take it anymore. Let's talk about you and Edward, because wow." She makes each letter its own syllable and I laugh at the look on her face when she leans forward.

It's really a credit to Angela's ability to steer the conversation that it took this long for Jessica to bring it up. She had been chomping at the bit since we showed up at her house this afternoon to pick her up. An optometrist and a dentist appointment kept her away from class today, but she called Angela (who had told her previously about our plans) immediately after school and pushed for an invite.

We're halfway into our journey to Port Angeles, driving just a little too fast down the 101, and so far, the only things we've talked about are the English essay and Mrs. Goff possibly having an affair with Coach Clapp.

"Jessica," Angela tries for a scolding tone, but she's just too soft-spoken to manage it. "Leave Bella be. If she wanted to talk about it-,"

"Well," I cut in awkwardly. "I kind of do want to talk about it."

Angela's eyebrows raise and Jessica literally shrieks with joy and I cover my face with my hands in giddy embarrassment. Once the atmosphere of the car settles a little, I turn in my seat to face Jessica.

"What do you want to know?"

"Have you slept together?"

Oh, geeze. She's not pulling any punches. I cringe a little because even though the answer is no, I feel like the question itself may upset Angela - the pastor's daughter.

She rolls her eyes when mine cut to her.

"Oh stop looking at me like that. Ben and I have been having sex since Junior year."

I fist-bump her because, respect.

"No," I say, turning back to Jessica.

"Why the hell not?"

"Jessica!"

"What!? She said she wanted to talk about it!"

Breaking up their argument, I explain, "We just haven't had the time. It's very new."

"How new?"

"Um," I blink, thinking it over, "I guess it's only been a few days."

"A few days?" Angela shakes her head. "You guys are so…"

She trails off and I die slowly, desperate to hear whatever it is she thinks we are.

"Intense," Jessica finishes decisively. Angela nods, agreeing with her choice of word.

"Is that bad?" I hate myself for asking because it doesn't matter what they think, not really, but I've never had a boyfriend before and I've never had girlfriends before (or friends, period. I had friend- just the one. Jake) and it seems so me to screw up both.

"No," they both chorus together, sincere and open, and my heart blooms with affection for both of them.

"The only people who have to like your relationship are you and Edward," Angela comments wisely. "And it's obvious you both do. I wasn't making a judgment."

"Me either," Jessica promises, "just an observation. You guys just seem really connected."

"Well, we've spent time together before the last few days." Admittedly, it wasn't a lot, but it's hard to explain how Edward and I had gotten so close so quickly without being like, 'we're constantly being thrust together in life or death experiences and sharing our most traumatic secrets,' and that doesn't seem wise. "We just haven't been together-together. In an official capacity."

"What do you guys talk about?"

Just normal things, like how he occasionally wants to kill me.

"Lots of things," is the safer, more vague answer I give.

"Like?" Jess presses.

"I told him how to make lasagna."

And given how absolutely stupid that answer is, I realize that maybe I don't want to talk about this. Jess isn't doing anything wrong, not at all, but I still feel weird about telling her. My deflection isn't even entirely about not being able to tell them certain things, or not wanting to get into the trauma of my childhood. Edward and I just feel… sacred. Special. Too intimate to expose to other people.

Jessica purses her lips. She seems a little put-off by my lack of details, which is fair because I'm the one who pursued the topic and then started talking about lasagna.

"Give me something, Bella."

I fish around for a bone to throw her and settle on a good one.

"He brought EJ a stick for his stick collection."

And oh, gosh, I want to gag at the dreamy admiration in myvoice.

"Aww." Angela practically swoons, which makes sense because she's got twin brothers at home. "That is so sweet!"

I nod. Jessica, an only child, tries hard to get why this matters.

"I don't even know how you talk to him."

"What do you mean?"

"He's just so gorgeous," Angela sighs, then turns bright red. "Don't tell Ben I said that."

I sigh happily because yeah, he is, but-

"He's even more unbelievable behind the face."

Jessica scoffs, not believing that, but moves on. "You really like him, don't you?"

Heat sweeps across my face. "Yeah, I do."

"I think he's crazy about you, too, Bella."

"You think?" I grasp at the outsider validation.

Angela looks shocked by my insecurity. "Absolutely. I've never seen anyone look at someone the way he looks at you, Bella. And even when you guys weren't talking, it was so obvious."

"Oh my gosh, yes," Jessica shouts. "All that broody staring you guys were doing - it was tragically hot." She falls back into her seat and pretends to fan herself.

"Jess!" I blush and they both laugh at me, and then Jess brings up Mike and the conversation drifts beyond me and my tiny little corner of the world.

Port Angeles is fun and happy and normal. We shop for winter clothes, then eat dinner, and stop in at a second-hand book store. Angela brings me an old children's book about Quileute legends for EJ and I have to stop myself from welling up at her thoughtfulness. We blast loud music the entire way home. Angela drops me off first, and I walk into my house full of joy and loaded with shopping bags.

"Hey," Dad greets, rushing to relieve me of my burden. "You brought home a haul!"

"I tilt my head to the bags in his left hand. "Those are all for EJ and Addie. I got them new shoes, too."

His eyes look a little wet. "Thank you. You didn't have to do that."

I don't want to lose the lightness that's been floating around with me all day, so I crack a joke.

"I did. I've seen you try to dress them."

Dad pulls a face good-naturedly and the heavy atmosphere dispels some. He puts the bags down on the counters, fishes out the receipts, and goes to pull out his wallet.

"Dad, you don't-,"

"Yes, I do. You're not spending your money on their clothes, Bella. That's not happening." Folded bills are pressed into my hand and I take them without any further protest. "EJ's waiting for you upstairs. He wanted to say goodnight."

I nod and reach into the bag containing the books to grab the one Angela found for him.

Half-way up the stairs, I remember something.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"What did the doctor say EJ had?"

"Oh, a real common rash called hand-foot-mouth."

Drat.

EJ's eyes are droopy when I walk in the room but they shoot open once he sees me.

"Izbella." His voice is warm and sleepy and makes my heart clench. I scoot onto the bed beside him. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too, EJ. I got you something while I was out, though."

"Can I see it?"

His hands grab eagerly for the book, grasping it to his chest for a second before thrusting it back to me.

"Will you read it?"

"Not tonight, buddy." I cringe at my own stupidity. Who brings a four-year-old a book past their bedtime and then doesn't read it? "It's already so late. But I tell you what -,' I lower my voice to a soft whisper and squint my eyes to play up the subterfuge involved in my plan. "You can look through the pictures for as long as your night light stays on." I click the button on the Mickey Mouse night light that sits on his bedside table, setting it for five minutes. "Once it turns off, you need to put the book away, okay?"

EJ's eyes get really big and round like they do when he's trying to impress upon you the seriousness of what he's going to say next. "I will. Promise."

I stand in the doorway of his room for a minute, watching him tear through the pages with excited eyes, before heading to my room to finish some homework before bed.

Four pages of an essay later, my head hurts and my eyes are bleary. Dad peeked in to say goodnight to me hours ago and the stillness of the house has become too much to bear, despite my desire to crank out the last three pages of this paper tonight.

As fatigued as I am, though, I find myself restless once I'm in bed. I toss and turn, trying to get comfortable, but my bed feels too warm and too lonely. My phone shines beside me and I make the impulsive decision to call Edward, knowing he'll be awake anyway.

He answers on the first ring.

"Bella, are you alright?" is his greeting of choice.

"Yes," I whisper into the phone. Even though he seems keyed up, anxious, his voice immediately soothes me. "I'm fine."

"Why are you calling so late?"

My stomach knots and my palms begin to sweat.

"Oh," I stutter out, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't - I'll let you g-,"

"No," he practically shouts. I pull the phone away from my ear reflexively. "No, don't go. I'm sorry, that came out wrong. It scared me - you calling so late. I just want to be sure you're okay."

I nod, then remember he can't see that. "I am. I was having trouble sleeping, so I decided to call you."

"An excellent decision."

"Are you having fun with Emmett?"

"Emmett's always fun." There's so much affection in his voice that I grin in response to it. "But I think I'm driving him crazy."

"Why?"

"I spent all evening worrying about you in Port Angeles. I've been ready to leave since the second we got here."

I hate that idea - that he can't enjoy himself because he's too busy fretting over my stupid fragility.

"Edward," I scold, "I'm fine. You should go hang out with Emmett. I'm sorry I even called, I shouldn't have interrupted."

Edward's voice is pleading. "Don't hang up. Please?"

He mistakes my breathless awe (because is he, Edward Cullen, really begging me, Bella Swan, to talk to him? Really?) for indecision.

"Emmett's on the phone with Rosalie right now, anyway. You're interrupting nothing. And I promise to have fun after we're done if you'll talk to me a bit longer."

"Okay," I murmur happily.

It's quiet for a few moments, nothing coming over the line but our breathing. Even in the silence, even over the phone, I feel comforted by the connection.

Then something begins to poke at my memory, something Jessica told me on the first day that Lauren saw. Sparked by Emmett's comments earlier today and reinforced by his current phone call, an idea forms.

"Are Emmett and Rose… an item?"

Edward's warm laugh sends shivers across my skin. "That's one way of putting it; they're married."

"Married?"

"Yes."

That just seems so wild. Logically, I know they're probably beyond old enough to be husband and wife, but still. It's hard to fit the image of the two of them, looking so much my age, sitting in a two-bed-two-bath apartment and commenting on the weather while they drink coffee - or blood, I guess.

"They're due for another wedding soon, actually. Rosalie says it's to 'reaffirm their bond,' but really she just likes the attention."

I picture gorgeous Rosalie in a slinky white dress and think I'd probably like attention, too, if I looked like that.

"Why aren't they public with it?"

"It just looks odd," Edward explains. The connection falters and warbles his voice. ". The story is that they're foster siblings, but that's siblings nonetheless. It attracts more attention than we need. Especially once you throw in Alice and Jasper-,"

"Alice and Jasper are together, too?"

"Yes."

I picture Edward on the third floor of that big house in the late hours of the night, sitting all alone while everyone around him is coupled off. How did he stand it - especially when he was constantly berated with their sounds and their thoughts, never getting a moment's reprieve? A lump forms in my throat. I press the speaker of the phone into the mattress, take slow and steady breaths until the rush of emotion is quelled.

When I pull the phone back to my ear, Edward is anxious.

"-lla? Bella, are you there?"

"Yes." I clear my throat and hope it will make me sound more like myself. "I am."

"What's wrong?"

I deflect with something that's true. "I miss you."

His voice is so soft when he says, "You have no idea, Bella. It's amazing how little interest everything else holds now that I've found you."

I think back to what Angela and Jess said in the car - about Edward and me being intense. And maybe that's true, probably is true, but I know for sure that what they said after is even truer. Edward and I get to decide what works for us, what feels right. After a lifetime of feeling not-quite-good-enough no matter where I was or who I was with, I want to lap up his showers of praise and affection, no matter how intense it may seem to anyone else.

I burrow down into my covers, finally feeling relaxed enough to fall asleep.

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Will you sing to me?"

His gentle humming is the answer I receive. I clutch the phone tight to my cheek and sleep brings peaceful oblivion.

The morning, however, brings only the fires of hell.

EJ spiked a fever in the night. It's not terrible, but it's enough to make him uncomfortable and cranky. He wants to be held and can't stand to be touched simultaneously, so he spends the morning whimpering groggily and climbing in and out of my lap.

Addie has developed the same rash EJ has, but hers has come with small red sores littering the inside of her mouth. She wails hysterically until I find the baby carrier and strap her as tightly as is feasible to my chest. Still, her little legs kick angrily every few minutes and she makes discontented noises in the back of her throat while she rubs her face against my chest.

Ms. Edna is sick, too, and the back-up sitter is out of town. Dad absolutely has to go to work, and he's frantically trying to call Billy when I snatch the phone from his hands and hang it up.

He looks at me with a little bit of genuine frustration (which part of my brain recognizes as a good thing - a sign that our relationship is going to survive and normalize) and I speak up before he can get too upset.

"I'm going to stay home."

Dad sighs, annoyed, and tries to take the phone back. "No, you're not."

"I am, though," I insist. "Neither of them will be able to sleep at Billy's. Billy can't come here because he can't get upstairs without help. The sitters aren't available and you can't call in. We're out of options. And besides all that, Addie's going to freak out if I leave. It's one day, Dad. It's not gonna hurt anything."

He argues with me a little bit more, says something about my education being important, how it's not my responsibility, but I can see in his eyes that I've already won. He leaves with a worried look and a promise to be back as soon as possible.

Then it's just the three of us. We make it through the morning without any casualties, mainly because EJ cannot stay awake when he's got a fever. He eats plain toast and asks me to carry him back to bed, where he stays for the next four hours, waking once for water and once for a cuddle and a song.

His drowsy demeanor is the polar opposite of Addie's response to illness. While he sleeps, she whimpers and cries all morning with little reprieve, her large dark eyes miserable and piercing. I call the pediatrician and leave a message with a nurse, asking what I can do to help her feel better, then check my phone every three minutes to see if they've returned my call. I try to give her a teething ring, but it doesn't reach the sore parts of her mouth, so she shoves it away in a fit of anger.

She sucks greedily at her bottle, and for a few blissful minutes, she is soothed. The bottle empties, though, and she screams louder than ever. When I look in her mouth, the blisters are angry looking, irritated from eating.

With an increasing sense of desperation, I dial Edward's number and pray one of his four trips to medical school taught him literally anything about pediatrics.

"Bel-?"

"Edward, oh thank God. What do I do? Addie is freaking out - she's got hand-foot-mouth, too, and there are all these blisters in her mouth. They're so painful-looking and swollen. I can't calm her down and I don't know how to make it better. Please, Edward."

My nerves are shot at this point. Tears well in my eyes and I force them back down because I don't want to make Addie's frantic cries any worse.

"How old is she?" Edward asks immediately. "How much does she weigh?"

I rattle off her measurements from her last doctor's appointment a week ago.

"Okay, give me two minutes, Bella. I think I know what you can do, but I want to run it by Carlisle first, just to be sure."

"Two minutes? You swear?"

"I swear."

The phone clicks. Addie continues to wail. I stroke the soft skin of her cheeks and coo and bounce and sing and freak the fuck out internally until my phone rings again.

Edward rattles off instructions authoritatively. She's old enough for infant Tylenol now, and I triple check the dosage with Edward and the back of the bottle before giving her any. The grape-flavored medicine distracts her almost immediately, and I remember we have flavored gas drops, so I pull them out, too. Then Edward tells me to find liquid Maalox (which I can't believe we have) dip a q-tip in the liquid, and coat her sores with it.

For a second that makes the screaming louder and I think I'll probably kill Edward with a wooden stake, or garlic, or whatever the fuck you kill vampires with - I'll have to ask him beforehand - but once each sore is coated in the thick liquid, she noticeably relaxes.

I almost weep with relief.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Of course," Edward says fervently. "The Tylenol should kick in soon, too. I'm so sorry she's not feeling well."

Addie's exhausted, tiny body melts into my chest. "Me, too."

"Are you there by yourself?"

"Yeah, Charlie had-,"

"Izbella!" EJ cries from upstairs. I mutter a goodbye to Edward and hang up, taking the stairs two at a time.

He's hungry again and I'm pleased with how much he eats at lunch. Addie, thankfully, calms down and I find a few moments to scarf down a sandwich before EJ needs me. His fever is steadily increasing again and he strips down to just his jammie shorts while I lay Addie down in her crib.

EJ and I plant ourselves on the couch and after many back-pats, arm-tickles, head-scratches, and snuggles, we fall asleep watching episodes of Handy Manny.

Addie wakes up two hours later and the process begins again. I feed her and then race upstairs and start the bath, hoping that will prove a sufficient distraction. It is. She's flapping her arms and legs wildly in the water when a knock sounds at the door.

Cursing under my breath, I pull her from the tub and wrap her in a towel, fingers and toes crossed she won't start screaming again once we're downstairs. The only way I've survived today is because EJ and Addie are pulling a tag-team operation, rather than a double-team. I genuinely don't think I could handle them both at the same time.

And like something out of a shitty movie, I trip because the universe is out to get me. I must have been a murderer or someone who watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians in a past life - it's the only explanation for this torture. I catch myself before I fall but Addie's little head smacks into the doorframe just hard enough that I know it's gonna be a problem. There's a split-second of silence and then a heart-stopping cry that makes me want to throw up with guilt.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, shhh, it's okay, I'm so sorry," I murmur.

"Izbella," EJ murmurs groggily from the living room.

The knock on the door gets more insistent. I practically rip the door from its hinges trying to open it.

"Oh my god, what?" I shout because I'm a really good hostess.

Edward stares at me from the other side, face determined.

"How can I help?"

A/N: Really, guys. I am NOT giving medical advice about what to do if your kid has HFM. I am not a doctor.

EJ's sick-self was inspired by my daughter, who is a *champion* sleeper when she's got a fever. She gets over almost every illness within a day or two because she'll just sleep 20 of the 24 hours in a day.

There's no big issue with Addie's head-bonk- it is just a minor ouchie.

No Jake this chapter because it got away from me a little. I think next week, though.

Thank you so much for all of your sweet reviews. And know that if you habitually review, I recognize your name and wait for your response each time I upload a chapter.