A/N: See! That wasn't too bad a wait, right?

"You're overreacting."

Bella rubbed at her temples, her eyes barely open in the harsh light of the medical bay. Her nerves were frayed. She hated hospitals and the ER most of all. Christ, her head hurt so much. And she was nauseated. And dizzy.

She just didn't feel well.

Beside her, Edward sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Bella… Just…"

She swallowed hard, ignoring the way her heart pounded and her gut twisted with nerves. "Charlotte had a brain tumor. I didn't. It can't be the same thing."

Her words came out harsher than she meant them to. It wasn't fair of her to bark at him, especially about this subject. But she was scared too. While it was true it was highly unlikely she had the same brain tumor that had killed Charlotte, she knew damn well cancer of almost any type could manifest itself in a variety of ways. Just because this wasn't how it had happened the first time didn't mean it wasn't a relapse. Cancer often spread.

But regardless, Edward had a right to be scared too. She knew what it must have done to him, to see her passed out with a nosebleed. He'd told her a little of what he'd been through with Charlotte. Especially as the tumor grew, pressing into her brain, nosebleeds and fainting spells were the least of the horrible things he'd seen. It was impossible not to think of what he stood to lose—his wife, of course, and the little girl Bella knew he loved fiercely.

She shuddered at the thought of McKenna belonging only to Liam.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice rough. She searched for his hand and threaded their fingers together. "I didn't mean to snap at you. We're both overreacting. It's heat exhaustion. That's all. I overdid it, and we were out all day today. Do you know how many miles you walk when you go to both parks on the same day? I looked at my tracker. I was sitting half the time, and I was still up to fifteen miles. That's crazy."

He blew out a slow breath and sat forward in his chair, grasping her hand in both of his. "You're right." He attempted a smile. "Just the heat."

"One twenty. And humid. Half the rides were broken," Bella muttered more to herself than him.

"Back," the nurse said, reappearing. "Let's get you hooked up."

The doctor who'd already seen Bella had diagnosed dehydration easily enough based on her symptoms. "Pretty common diagnosis today, especially for anyone who's been out in the heat."

Bella grimaced, turning her head away as the needle came out. She tried not to think of when her life had been an endless stream of hospital visits and oh so many needles.

"The doctor will be back soon. In the meantime, this should help you feel better."

They were left alone again.

"Alice said she managed to get Mac asleep," Edward said quietly, looking at his phone.

"She was exhausted." Bella yawned. "That makes three of us, I guess."

"I'm not tired."

"Yeah, you are." Bella played with his fingers with her free hand. "It's going to be okay."

"I should be telling you that."

"You did the whole way here."

"Yeah." Edward ran a shaking hand through her hair. "Just the heat, right?"

"Yeah." She paused. "It wouldn't be so dramatic. Relapsing, I mean. I'd go in for my annual check up, and it'd be in the test results. That's all."

Time passed too slowly. Finally, though, the doctor reappeared. "A little saline goes a long way." She smiled at Bella. "You're looking better. Got some color back in your cheeks." She sat down in her stool. "Well, we do have some answers for you right off. The nausea is easy to explain for sure. We ran a pregnancy test, and it came back positive."

Bella's breath cut off in a wheeze. She and Edward stared dumbly. "Can you… What?" Bella asked.

"You're pregnant, kids."

More staring. Edward swallowed audibly. "And what else?"

The doctor cocked her head. "And… you definitely shouldn't be wandering around in the sun. And you need to keep hydrated for sure."

"But the cancer?" Edward bit the words out, his voice sounding raw. "The nose bleed?"

"We've run the appropriate tests to make sure. It'll be a few days before we get those results. But the pregnancy can explain that too. The soft tissue is sensitive. It's a lesser known symptom, but it does happen." She wagged a finger at Bella. "Probably from being out in the sweltering heat from morning to night." She looked at both of them. "Like I said, we'll have to wait for the tests to come back, but I think we have your answer right here."

~0~

Since Alice had managed to get McKenna to sleep, Edward and Bella went straight home. Bella sat on the edge of their bed, running a hand over her face. She was caught in a surreal space, one foot in some of her worst memories and the other looking ahead to new possibilities. New fears.

Edward was quiet but steady. He folded her in his arms. She sat in their bed, her legs pulled up to her chest, and he wrapped himself around her. Together, they breathed.

Despite her best efforts, hope grew in her, tiny as the new life that had sparked into existence under her nose.

~0~

It wasn't that Bella hadn't been aware there was a possibility she was still fertile. She had vague memories of the conversation she'd had with the doctor. She'd been in a state of shock. First the diagnosis. Then the devastating choice and her husband's cold fury. Then the prospect of facing an abortion alone. She'd had no room left in her head or her heart to consider future children.

The younger a cancer patient was, the more likely she would still be fertile after treatment. Bella hadn't thought much about it. After her treatments, her cycle had never regulated. She could go months between periods. It was no real loss. After Liam, Bella couldn't imagine having another child someone could just rip away.

With Edward the conversation simply hadn't come up. They had other things to think about. Edward was working hard to get better and Bella was starting a new career. She supposed she'd taken her infertility for granted.

"One step at a time," Edward said. They were both still numb. There were too many unanswered questions, and they'd both been here before.

Their first answer came relatively quickly.

"All clear," Bella said, closing her eyes and melting into Edward's embrace, her phone slipping from her hand.

She was still cancer free.

"Then we can face anything," Edward said against her ear. "You and me together. We have whatever comes our way."

~0~

Nine weeks. Already two months gone.

"There's every likelihood the baby is fine. Normal," the doctor said during their first OB appointment. "It's true that a woman has all the eggs she'll ever have at the beginning of her life, and theoretically, those eggs did go through chemotherapy with you. However, only one or two eggs mature each month. Studies don't show much of an increase in birth defects after chemotherapy. The studies aren't definitive, but there isn't a significant reason to worry.

"However, due to your history, as a precaution, I would recommend genetic testing. There are two types. The blood test and the amniocentesis."

~Edward~

"Mommy, are you sick, again?"

Any other time, Edward might have been amused. McKenna's voice sounded exasperated, but there was worry etched on her small face. He didn't find her worry funny at all. Seeing her mother collapse had shaken them both to the core. Now, everytime Bella looked pale, McKenna started to fret.

The problem was, it had been a month since Disneyland. At this point, Bella was in a state of perpetual queasiness. She was worn and gaunt, her skin a sickly color that set Edward's teeth on edge. His brain wouldn't let him stop connecting one sick, pregnant wife with the other. And no matter what the doctor said, the part of him waiting for disaster couldn't wrap its head around the idea the baby could possibly be okay. The body of a cancer patient was permanently altered. Could it really still build something as complex as a human being?

Sitting across from McKenna, her head in her hands, Bella stared at her daughter for several quiet seconds. Then, a strange look came over her face, and for the first time in all those weeks, she smiled. She sat up straight and opened her arms to her daughter. "Come here."

McKenna abandoned her dinner and hurried to climb into Bella's lap. "Do you remember when I told you before you were born you lived inside me? Right here?" Bella put a hand to her belly. When McKenna nodded, she continued. "There's a new baby living there right now. And sometimes, that gives me a stomachache. That's all."

Some hours later, when McKenna was occupied, playing her video game, Bella put her arm around Edward and rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry for making a unilateral decision. We were scaring her." She paused a beat, then craned her head to look up at him. "I think we're scaring ourselves, and we've put off talking about it for way too long."

A painful lump rose to Edward's throat. He had a fear of this conversation he knew damn well wasn't rational.

Bella raised her head, eyes full of trepidation. "I know we never talked about it. I know it's the wrong time. But is this a horrible thing?"

He exhaled in a gust. "No. I…" He shook his head. "You were enough. You and McKenna." He stroked his fingers through her hair. "It feels like too much already. To ask for this, for everything to be okay, seems like too much. There's this sense of foreboding I can't seem to shake. I don't think about...the baby." Even the words were hard to say. "I think about you."

She studied him a long moment. "I get that." She lay her head on his shoulder again. "I keep thinking. The only pregnancy I planned was the one I had to terminate." She shuddered. "I keep thinking...what if. What if there's something wrong, really wrong? What if I have to choose again? It's hard to think about anything over that."

He knew all those stories as well. Babies born only to suffer for hours or days. Fetuses that died in utero, becoming a danger to the mother. There were so many possibilities.

Bella gripped his hand. "But that's stupid, isn't it? When I was fighting cancer, I had a seventy percent chance of survival. That's thirty percent chance of the worst possibility. Whether or not we got McKenna back was down to a stranger's whim, and we still had so much hope. Now, it's not even a five percent chance that something is wrong. Why are we living under a cloud, Edward?"

He laughed, completely without humor. "Because I'm good at it?"

She laughed, hers more genuine, and she raised her head to kiss the tip of his nose. She looked him in the eyes. "Do you want this with me?"

It had been so, so long since he thought about something as mundane and incredible as having a baby. He'd had only a couple of weeks to consider what that meant before the pregnancy was the thing killing his wife. He opened his mouth to lie—he knew he shouldn't stress out a pregnant woman—but, looking at her, remembered what he'd promised years ago. Talk. Be honest. "I don't know how to want it."

She stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "Then how about we give ourselves a break? We don't have to be excited about the pregnancy." She swallowed hard. "I think… I think maybe we'll both believe it's okay when he or she is born and we can see for ourselves that everything is okay. So, we're going to take care of ourselves; be healthy. And we're going to let McKenna be excited, and our family be excited for us."

His lip twitched. "Will you be promise to be patient with me? If I want to wrap you in bubble wrap?"

"Only if you don't actually wrap me in bubble wrap."

His smile was genuine this time. He kissed her. "You have a deal."

~Some Months Later~

Edward tapped his foot, restless. He watched the huge, blue board, his eyes on the flights coming in from DFW. Ever the pain in the ass, Liam had been vague about when their flight was arriving. Edward wouldn't care normally, but it meant he was away from his wife. She'd been through hell the day before, and he hated being this far away from her.

But, he'd take it. McKenna had adamantly refused to get on the plane to see her father until he promised she could come back early to be there when her little brother was born. Liam had been horrible about it, of course, but had ultimately given in to McKenna's desires with the stipulation that he would still get his visit. He and his now-wife Maggie were going to spend the next two weeks in California, and McKenna would stay with them.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you ignored McKenna outright," Liam had told Bella. Apparently, his theory that she hated her children had evolved somewhat over the years to the idea she could only hate his children.

Edward scanned the people coming down the escalator until finally McKenna appeared, holding on to Maggie's hand. Her eyes went wide and bright when she saw Edward, and she bounced in place until they got near the bottom of the escalator. Then, she darted.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Is Mommy and baby brother okay? We have to go see them right now. I'm already late." Her words crashed into each other as he reached down to scoop her up into a hug.

"Daddy?" Liam said, his lips curling around the word.

Edward met his eyes, and god help him, he couldn't stop the smirk that pulled at his lips. "I'll drop her off at your hotel tomorrow as discussed," he said. Then, he turned away, carrying McKenna out of there before Liam could start his shit.

~0~

Later that night, the hospital room was quiet. Edward rested in the little alcove designated for partners. Bella was asleep in her hospital bed, and his son…

His son.

Thirty-six hours after his birth, the words were only beginning to sink in. It was confusing. Awful in some ways because when he held his son for the first time, how could he help but remember the tiny little being he'd held in the cupped palm of his hand? Ezra. His first son.

Jackson Perri Cullen had a much different reception.

His mother was alive. So, so alive. Flushed and crying, her eyes bright and her smile radiant as she reached out to touch the boy's cheek, as though she needed to keep contact with him even as Edward held him. It had been a difficult pregnancy, and like him, Bella's emotions had remained disconnected throughout, but the instant the doctor placed the squirming, squalling boy in her arms, he had witnessed the awesome sight of a woman falling instantly, irrevocably in love with her child.

As for Edward, he wasn't sure what he felt. His chest was warm, watching Bella clasp their son to her breast. And then later, when McKenna climbed into bed beside her mother to meet her little brother, he felt as though his heart grew again. Because he loved them, though. He didn't know what he felt for his tiny son.

Though it was, theoretically, the second night, given that Jackson was born at one in the morning, the first night had been too hectic to find peace. Now, in the semi-darkness of the hospital room, Edward stood and went to his son's side. The baby rested, swaddled tightly in his clear bassinet. Edward was startled to find his unfocused eyes were open. Slowly, he reached out and pulled the boy carefully up into his arms.

They sat together, father and son, for what might have been minutes or hours. Edward propped him up on his knees and just stared. For his part, the baby's eyelids fluttered and drooped. He fell back asleep, secure in his father's embrace.

Edward put him back to bed and returned to his alcove, too wide-awake now to even consider sleeping. In the bag Bella had packed for him, he found paper and a pen. He wrote three letters. Three promises to be there every minute of every day. To keep on fighting. To be the man they all deserved. He wrote—one to Bella. One to McKenna. One to his son.

Today was the first day of the rest of their lives.

~The End~

A/N: So many thanks to Packy, Betsy, Eleanor, MyOnlyHeroin, and Mina for all their help. '

Thanks to all of you for joining me on another journey. Much love.