Edward's POV

I was amazed by Bella. The very first day that she defied the nurse assigned to her care to come looking for Elizabeth following the accident, was the first day that I felt something towards the woman that I barely knew. She had struggled for sure, but she had worn each challenge and success with grace and strength. I had never seen her as anything but remarkable.

But following the birth of our triplets, I honestly had no idea how she did it.

Building a routine had been something that we both knew was important, but managing that routine in real life was a whole other story.

But somehow, Bella managed it.

Each day Bella woke up early to spend time with Masen and Elizabeth, feed them breakfast and get them ready for the day. Of course, this was after setting her alarm throughout the night to continue to pump milk for the triplets at regular intervals. Then Bella would leave for the NICU and feed each triplet as they got bigger and began to nurse – first Susannah, and then Adelaide, and then finally Caroline. At some point through each day, Bella made a point to come home and spend time again with Mase and Ellie and I – playing with them for a few minutes or reading to them, sometimes just sitting and eating a snack with them. Sometimes she went out and took them for a short walk.

Each afternoon, Mom or occasionally Rosalie would come over and take over with Mase and Ellie while I would accompany Bella back to the hospital and spend time with the girls myself while Bella would again, feed and pump and write in her journal – something that she enjoyed doing for herself and which also allowed her to mark down any improvements or blips.

By dinner time I would leave to go back home to care for our older two children and Bella would usually come home soon after, eating dinner with us and staying home for a little while before tucking Masen and Ellie into bed; more often than not returning to the hospital again for a last feed and pumping session before bed.

She never stopped and she never did it with anything but positivity and gratitude.

Of course, some days were harder for her than others and I could see the emotional exhaustion taking its toll – but overall, she was a rock.

Once Alice was admitted to the hospital, Bella had often wandered down to her room to keep her company for short periods when the triplets were all sleeping, often lifting her spirits and providing encouragement to her as well.

Once Alice had the twins, it made it a little easier on Bella – she and Alice were able to talk and bond further as Alice experienced the same worry and fears as we had, the same learning curve as her boys adjusted to the outside world and learned the basics – breathing, eating, and keeping warm.

But it didn't get easier on Bella – in fact, it got much harder once Susannah and Adelaide were cleared to come home just days apart; but with Caroline still at the hospital, I could see the exhaustion beginning to wear her down.

Thank God for family and friends… because I was tired too.

Finally, six weeks and four days after their birth, Caroline was released from the hospital.

"You guys must be beyond relieved to be takin' Carrie home." My brother strode across the nursery and stood beside me once her doctor had left, after officially giving her the all-clear.

"You have no idea brother…" I sighed as I felt my shoulders relax while I watched Bella as she changed our daughter's diaper. "But you'll get it soon enough." I laughed as I nodded towards where Alice was sitting with one of their boys against her chest.

"Bells, I just wanted to tell you how amazing you are. Honestly, I couldn't have imagined a better woman for my brother." Jasper addressed Bella who froze at the sudden shift in conversation, Caroline's outfit partly done up. Moving to take over for her, I nudged her towards Jasper while I finished doing up the snaps and placing the tiny hat on our daughter's head. Jasper didn't hesitate in wrapping up Bella in a gentle embrace, holding her tightly for a moment.

"We'll see you on the other side B." Jasper said as they parted, and Bella wiped a tear from her eye. She had on several occasions mentioned to me how much my family meant to her, and how much she wished that she had family that could be here with her. Jasper and Alice had become especially important to Bella over the last year, but specifically since the day she and Alice had been held hostage together.

"It won't be long now… pretty soon you'll all be on your way home too." She said with a smile. I was holding on to Caroline now and I moved towards Alice to say goodbye as Jasper and Bella followed me. Dad was waiting just outside the doors with our other four children while we completed the paperwork and signed the discharge forms.

"See you soon Al. Love you." Bella told her best friend a minute later. "Maybe by the time these guys are released, they'll have names!" I nudged my brother jokingly and he rolled his eyes at me.

"Almost there… we're almost decided." Alice stuck her tongue out at me and I laughed. It felt good to be able to joke around a little bit.

For a while, things had been tense – all five our babes were tiny and each one faced minor hiccups along the way. As I hugged my brother once more, our first conversation following the birth of his twins came back to mind:

"Congratulations brother." Emmett and I had joined Jasper in the NICU following the birth of his twins while Bella and Rosalie had gone down to see Alice.

"Thanks man," he said quietly, staring down at the two little ones in front of him. The nursing staff was busy assessing and charting both babies, getting them settled into their isolettes, and setting up their monitors. It was like deja-vu to me as I remembered watching the same process happen four weeks prior with Adelaide and Susannah.

"I can't believe they're here… and they're both okay." He was choked up as he spoke, and I nodded beside him. "After losing the baby the first time… everything scared me with these guys." He confessed and I continued to nod along in understanding. My oldest brother was probably the best at standing sturdy and hiding his emotions, but he was also probably the most emotional of us beneath the surface.

"I know… I mean, I've seen your girls, and I knew what to expect… but man, they're tiny." Jasper whispered a minute later, and I smirked. No matter how many ways you tried to prepare yourself, or how many other preemies you had seen, nothing could ever quite prepare you for your own children and how small they would seem.

"Yep." I nodded, letting my brother work out his thoughts and feelings.

"How are you so calm? How do you know what to do with these guys?" He asked, looking up and into my face. In an instant, I recognised his fear and the gravity of how his life had changed with the birth of his children.

"You didn't see me right after Masen was born – it was all that dad could do to keep me from losing my shit. And with these guys… I was a complete mess." I began.

"I was the same with Haley… and it was only a single baby." Emmett added in quietly.

"I remember standing here and watching them assess Adelaide and Susannah just like you are now, and not knowing where Caroline was or if she was okay – and I remember thinking that I had gotten in way over my head and that I had no idea if I was going to be able to be a good dad to each and every one of them. I froze in here as I watched them before I went back to check on Bella because I honestly didn't know what to do for a few minutes.

The first day after the triplets arrived, I sat down with Dad and just bloody cried… I had no idea how to be everything; and the fear that I had felt when Bella and Alice were trapped with that mad-woman… it all just hit me at once.

And then Dad told me about when you were born, and then Emmett, and then me… he told me about his and Mom's experience with losing their first baby and the fear he felt with each of us. And I realised when he told me about his experience working with various other new parents, how normal it is.

We're supposed to be a little nervous… nobody really has any fucking clue what they're doing and all that we can do is take it a day at a time and do the best that we can to protect them and keep them healthy… and of course love them." My brother moved his hand to wipe a stray tear as I finished up my speech and saw my Dad come in out of the corner of my eye. He nodded at me and I nodded back… Over the past year and a half, I had come to understand my father much deeper than I had ever previously been able to.

"Thank you, Edward, Emmett," Jasper didn't say much else as Dad joined us and I moved to step back to give my brother and father a moment.

"Man, what the hell did these women and kids do to us!" Emmett exclaimed as he followed me back over towards my own newest additions. "They've turned us into a buncha softies!" He laughed nervously and I chuckled a little as I looked back up at Emmett and noted that Jasper hadn't been the only one with a tear in his eye.

As we left the NICU with Caroline that day, I had never been prouder of the life that Bella and I had built, or grateful for the family that we had been blessed with.

"Ready to go home?" I asked Bella with a smile. She didn't say a word, she simply smiled back at me as she picked up Caroline's car-seat. Following suit, I grabbed a hold of Adelaide and Susannah and Dad followed behind with Elizabeth and Masen in his arms. Leaving the hospital, I felt a little like we were our own parade as we loaded up the mini-van and got each child buckled in.

As we pulled in the driveway, it was to the sound of two kids sleeping quietly, two crying at completely different volumes, and one singing happily to herself. It was a beautiful sound.

One that seemed to never end.

At least some days.

Our house had gotten loud, and busy, and messy. We relied on a girl that we hired to clean regularly, and a local girl named Maggie helped us out throughout the days with anything else, often just as an extra set of hands for diapers, rocking, or playing.

Two weeks after Caroline was released, Alice and Jasper finally received the go-ahead to bring their boys home as well. For the first time in months, nobody was in the hospital.

One month later, the entire family gathered together once again for dinner with Mom and Dad. Mom had gone all out, thrilled to have everyone coming over… it wasn't the first time that we had all seen each other, but it was the first time we would all be in the same house at the same time – Alice and Jasper had faced a few problems with the boys and one of the twins had been rushed back to the hospital for three days with an infection that was thankfully brought quickly back under control.

Not only that, but Bella and I had zero energy. We barely made it out of the house and to the grocery store each week, and between everyday tasks and ensuring that we still did things with Masen and Elizabeth, we were drained. Having two practically-twins followed by triplets was not for the weak.

But I was getting ready to return to work the following week, and I knew Mom missed having her weekly dinners at their place. Family was the most important thing in the world to my mother and she absolutely loved having everyone together regularly – though she always respected our individual family needs as well.

"Wow." It was all I could say as Mom and I walked arm-in-arm into the living room. I had disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes to give her a hand with some of the dinner preparations, as well as to thank her once more. Mom had been truly invaluable to us over the past few months and I would never be able to fully express how grateful both Bella and I were to her and my dad. But I would keep reminding her whenever I could. I was after all, a bit of a Mama's Boy.

"That's a lot of little in one place." I laughed as I looked beside me at Mom. She had a tissue in her hand and was dabbing at her cheek.

In the room in front of us, Bella and Alice had the five newborns laid out on a small white carpet that I didn't recognise, and I guessed that Alice had most likely brought it for this exact purpose. Each of the babies was positioned to form a circle and Al was standing on a footstool above them with her camera in hand, taking photos of the sight.

In the far corner, I watched as Rosalie sat talking to Bells and Alice, with Haley who was chewing on the corner of her blanket in her lap… it was actually one of Emmett's old baby blankets that Haley had begun to cling to, bringing it with her everywhere.

Beside them, Dad was playing trucks with Masen – really Masen just kept crashing his one truck into the line of cars that Dad kept setting up for him, while Elizabeth sat quietly in Bella's arms with a cloth book in her hands. Of course, she was just holding it, but the intense way in which she stared at the pictures on the open page, reminded me so much of Bella whenever she had a moment to herself to spend reading.

"And nobody's crying!" My mom whispered a second later as I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of the room in front of me.

But as Mom said the magic words, a small whimper was heard from the floor and in an instant Jasper was there, picking up a baby and rocking him before it could turn into a cry, but it didn't work, and within a second of him letting out a tiny cry, I watched as Adelaide scrunched up her face and let out a small cry of her own.

"Well, feeding time it is." Bella and Alice laughed as Mom and I sat down on the floor beside the momentarily content ones.

"Alice, how did the audiologist appointment go with Sawyer?" My mom asked and tuned into the answer.

For the most part, both twins were doing fairly well considering their prematurity, however Baby A – or Sawyer Everett Cullen - had received a 'refer' result on his hearing screening test at the hospital. He had been referred to an audiologist to follow up and to see if he had any level of hearing loss. I know that both Jasper and Alice had been pretty worried about it.

"He passed the test with no problem this time!" My brother's wife beamed at her answer and the entire room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"And Tucker's been doing well? No more infections?" Rosalie asked and again Alice seemed to beam as she shook her head 'no'. Infection was always a concern with any newborn, but even more with preemies. When Baby B – or Tucker Jackson Cullen – had first spiked a fever after going home, my brother had reacted quickly and didn't hesitate to take him immediately back to the hospital. Thankfully he had come through it quickly and was soon home again. But not without scaring the crap out of Alice and Jasper first.

"And how are you and Bells doing with the girls? Any more mix-ups?" Emmett chimed in with a loud guffaw and I rolled my eyes at him, my cheeks flushing at the embarrassing reminder.

"No. No other incidents – we make sure to stick to the colour system at all times." Bella laughed, nudging me with her toes as I picked up both Caroline and Susannah.

In the first few days home from the hospital, we had kept their identifying bracelets on, however we had already begun to dress them in identifiable ways – because let's face it, they were identical – though they each had some sort of identifying difference – for example, Susannah had a small slightly red mark above her left eye – it was easiest to keep organised from the beginning.

Unfortunately, Bella didn't have a chance to tell me that she had removed their bracelets one night. She had been distracted with Elizabeth and Masen and getting them changed for bed. So I had tackled the triplets, stripping them each down and changing diapers one by one. When I went to re-dress each of them in a clean sleeper, I was completely lost as to who was who.

I had to admit that instead of looking closer, I initially panicked – Bella coming in after getting our toddlers down to find me frozen, trying to remember who had been wearing which previous outfit. She thought it was hilarious. And once we had sorted it out, Bella of coursing pointing out the smallest differences, we had immediately painted their toenails; Susannah wore pink, Adelaide wore Green, and Caroline wore purple.

"So… uh… Emmett, Rose… when are you guys having number two?" Jasper looked to our brother next and I winked at him. Emmett loved Rose and Haley but number two was not in the plans for them yet. "You guys have to catch up to the rest of us!" Alice laughed along and Rose shook her head. Again, I knew that she loved Haley but with all of the new babes in the family, she was content with just one for right now.

When we all finally managed to make it to the dining room and sit down to dinner, it was the perfect combination of family and chaos – Haley, Elizabeth, and Masen sitting at the table between adults, Jasper holding Sawyer, and Alice feeding Tucker; Bella feeding Caroline, while Susannah stayed in my arms, and Dad holding onto Adelaide. There were two playpens set up for the babes to retire to while we ate, but to be honest, our family was content holding onto them… it was the way we were.

And I knew that though life was incredibly busy, and oftentimes loud and crazy, there was never going to be a shortage of love in any of our children's lives. And none of it would have been possible if I hadn't taken a risk with Bella, if I hadn't fallen for her in the midst of tragedy.

A/N: Almost done! Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about cleaning up the Kate drama… there's still a little bit left, but we're definitely winding down. Again, thank you to everyone who has continued to read and leave such great reviews. I really appreciate it.

As always, if something isn't quite factually correct, let's just go with it!