Grocery shopping for vampires was truly a chore... You had to go through all the motherly motions of finding the ripest fruit, the freshest meat, or the tastiest cookies, all for nothing. Esme Cullen knew that it was an essential part of their charade, but it didn't make it any less boring. Yet again she felt like an actor going through the script and not actually living any part of it.

She smiled at the equally bored looking cashier as he rang up the crackers and other various items she was purchasing, and then started pushing her bag filled cart to her car. Next stop, the battered women's shelter in Port Angeles to drop off the newly bought food. Esme was a regular donor to that particular shelter and was usually greeted by name. The Cullen family saw no point in buying food that would simply go to waste and had always donated to whichever organization was nearest to wherever they were currently living.

She pulled her key chain from her purse and hit the unlock button, causing Carlisle's Mercedes to make a loud beep in reply.

"Whoa!" a female voice shouted in surprise from the other side of the vehicle. As Esme rounded the trunk of the car she saw a young woman who had apparently been leaning against the Mercedes. She was young, about 18 and heavily pregnant. She straightened as soon as she saw Esme and immediately started apologizing.

"I'm so sorry," she sputtered. "I swear I wasn't trying to steal your car or anything. I just got dizzy all of a sudden and needed to lean up against something. I'll just go now..."

"Oh, it's quite all right," Esme reassured the girl. "Are you feeling better? Maybe you better sit down." She was grateful that the girl's scent was being blown away from her. Esme's control around humans was much better than it had been in her newborn years, but it didn't do to tempt fate with no one around to hear the girl scream. She opened up her back seat and offered to let the girl sit down for a minute. The girl looked about to protest then turned a shade of gray and willingly let herself slip to the back seat while Esme loaded the groceries into the trunk. Esme kept shooting glances at her visitor who was looking more and more indisposed. The more glances she took the more worried she got, the poor girl looked terrible! Her brown hair was tangled and greasy, and the motherly vampire's keen sense of smell suggested that the girl hadn't been able to take a shower in a couple of days. A human wouldn't have been able to hear the rumbling of the empty stomach in her back seat, but Esme could hear it fine. There was no way she was just letting this girl run off without some kind of help.

After putting her now empty cart in the corral, she turned back to her unexpected guest. She was looking better but still a little pale. "I'm Esme Cullen," she said, hoping to gain the girl's confidence. Most sensible people knew better than to trust strangers.

"Izzy Jensen," she replied, still breathing rather heavily.

"If you don't mind my asking, when's the last time you had something hot to eat?" Esme prodded, putting some of the vampire allure behind her words, hoping Izzy would answer.

Either because of the unnatural push Esme had given her or simply because she was honest, Izzy answered with "I don't remember," and a sheepish smile.

"Dinner's on me," Esme declared, firmly. Izzy tried to protest but Esme could tell that the girl was hungry. "If not for you, then for the baby," Esme continued over Izzy's half-hearted arguments. "It's hard enough to eat for two without skipping meals."

Esme offered a hand to help lever the pregnant woman from her car. Izzy seemed startled by Esme's cold hands, but didn't comment. Esme could tell that Izzy would probably feel uncomfortable driving anywhere with a stranger, so she satisfied herself with leading the other woman down the street to the local McDonalds. It wasn't the healthiest option for a pregnant woman, but it was nearby and had hot food.

The two women sat together in a rather uncomfortable booth while Izzy scarfed down two burgers and a large french fry. Esme had ordered a coffee and was pretending to sip it every so often.

"You're not from around here," Esme said, making it a statement, not a question. The Cullen's had only been living in Forks, Washington for about a year, but it was a small enough town for her to know everybody at least by sight.

Izzy shook her head with a smile. "I'm actually lost. I'm trying to get to Vancouver but I took a wrong turn and ended up here."

"You are out of your way then, where are you from?"

"Long Beach, but I'm on my way to Vancouver to live with my aunt. She's a midwife and was going to deliver the baby." Izzy said.

"Where's the father," Esme asked. There was really no way to be delicate about something like that. "Is he meeting you there?"

Izzy gave an unladylike snort. "Damian? He scampered as soon as I told him I might be pregnant! No, there's nobody other than Aunt Gloria."

"Surely your mom would want to be there for you?" Esme pressed. For some reason she wanted to know everything about this soon-to-be mother.

"Mom just disappeared about 6 years ago. I bounced from foster home to foster home until I turned eighteen."

Esme felt a stab of fury at this deadbeat mom. What kind of mother could just abandon her child like that?! At least Izzy was looking like she wasn't going to continue the cycle and abuse or neglect her own baby.

Izzy stopped short for a second and almost glared at Esme. "You are way too easy to talk to," she said. "I've never told someone this much about me after just meeting them. How about we talk about you for a while."

Esme laughed. She didn't know if it was her vampire allure or the motherly aura that Alice insisted she had, that was causing Izzy to trust her so easily, but she was grateful either way. This was turning into a far more interesting afternoon than she had originally planned.

"Well, I'm happily married, with five children, well more accurately three adopted children and a nephew and niece that live with my husband and I. They're all teenagers so they keep me hopping. If you think that a baby is hard to take care of when it's still in the womb, wait until they want to start dating! You never know where they're at during any given time. Oh, good gracious!" Esme was half way through her introduction of her vampire family when she saw Izzy's extended stomach ripple from top to bottom, easily visible through her too-small tee shirt. Izzy's face crumpled for a moment in discomfort.

"Are you... in labor?" Esme asked in disbelief.

"I'm okay," she replied, breathing heavily and absently rubbing her tummy. "It's been doing that for a few hours now. That's part of the reason I'm not back on my way, I don't want it getting any worse and be stuck on the side of the road somewhere. I stopped by the Fork's hospital when I got into town, but the nurse who checked said that it's probably just false labor."

"Are you sure?" Esme asked doubtfully. She still vividly remembered giving birth to her beautiful baby boy when she was still human and contractions that strong were rarely false.

Izzy's face fell, "No," she whispered. "It feels different this time."

The vampire woman gathered up her purse and made to stand up. "Let's get you to the hospital then!"

Izzy reached out a hand to stop her. "There's no point, I don't have insurance and I can't pay the bills myself. I had to wait for nearly two hours for them to find a nurse who was available and didn't mind doing an examination for free. He took one look down below and said for me to go home."

Esme was dumbfounded. That didn't sound like the Forks hospital at all! At the very least Carlisle would have seen her for free. Unless he was busy in surgery...

"Well, dear, don't you worry about finding someone to check you over," Esme soothed. "I happen to have some influence over Fork's senior ER physician. He's my husband, and all I need to do is ask for a favor!"

Izzy looked staggered. "You would do that for me? You don't even know me!"

Esme looked her in the eyes. "You are going to be a mother, and we moms need to stick together. Just pass a favor onto someone else someday and we'll call it even."

Poor Izzy looked like she was going to cry, so Esme stepped a little ways away to give her some privacy and call her husband. The phone rang only twice before Carlisle picked up.

"Sweetheart, you are a breath of fresh air," were the first words out of his mouth. "There was a four car pileup on the highway on the way into Forks. I've spent the last five hours picking shrapnel from a ten-year-old's intestines. I can't wait for my shift to end."

Esme felt a little guilty, but knew that Carlisle was likely far from actually exhausted and was putting on a show for any nurses or staff in listening distance. One of the benefits of being an untiring member of the vampire world...

"I made a friend today," she said, cheerfully, hoping to butter him up a little. She knew that Carlisle would do anything she ever asked of him, but that didn't mean that she had to completely mooch off his good nature. "And I need a favor from you."

"Oh, dear..." Carlisle said. The last time Esme had asked for a favor it had involved a $750,000 house and $100,000 worth of new furniture.

"It's not that bad, I just need some help for my new friend. She's about 18 or so and is currently having labor pains in the middle of McDonalds. She won't come to the hospital because she can't pay so I'm offering to pay you for her. How does a week of back rubs sound?" Esme could hear Izzy giggling at her offer.

She could tell from Carlisle's voice that he was grinning. "Sounds fair enough to me. Can I talk to her for a minute. I want to find out if she's far enough along for me to need to send an ambulance."

Esme handed the phone to Izzy, who took it nervously. "Hello?"

Esme could easily hear both sides of the conversation. Sometimes being a vampire had its benefits...

"Hi, this is Carlisle Cullen, Esme's husband. I understand you are having labor pains? How far apart are the contractions? How close are you to your due date?"

"Um, the contractions are about thirty seconds long and about fifteen to twenty minutes apart. I don't know how far along I am, but I think I'm a couple weeks early. I never went to see the doctor to be able to find out, I just used one of those online calculators at the library computer." She sounded embarrassed.

"So you've gone this whole pregnancy without any medical monitoring?" Carlisle confirmed.

"Yep, pretty much," she said, definitely sheepish.

"All right, I would like you to come directly to the hospital for a full examination. We'll see what's happening and get you taken care of." Carlisle said, his strong voice soothing.

"You don't need to go to that much effort," Izzy protested. "I just need someone to catch the baby when it pops out! I can't pay so you don't need to give me the full treatment..." The poor girl sounded so embarrassed that Esme's heart would have clenched if it still could.

Carlisle laughed, putting her at ease. "I'm getting back rubs out of this, I'd better earn them! I think I can do a little better than just, um, 'catching'. I'll see you and Esme at the hospital."

Izzy followed Esme's car to the hospital and the older woman helped her to the check in desk. Carlisle wasn't there just yet, so Esme sat down while Izzy started filling out paperwork.

Esme smelled him before she saw him; a sweet scent that always reminded her of sunlit summer days, with a faint overshadowing of hand sanitizer. Carlisle came up behind her chair and gently kissed her cheek.

"Thank you for doing this, love," Esme said. "I just couldn't stand to see her so lost and alone when I knew you could help."

Carlisle quickly hugged her from behind. "You are a Guardian Angel, my dear. I shudder to think what might have become of that girl if you hadn't taken her under your wing."

The vampire couple suddenly realized that Izzy was arguing with the receptionist.

"Dr. Cullen said that he would be willing to help me for free!" Izzy exclaimed in tearful frustration.

"I'm sorry, dear, but I need to have him tell me that!" the receptionist replied.

"That's my cue," Carlisle murmured to his wife and left to go straighten things out.

Walking up to the distraught girl, Carlisle said, "You must be Izzy, it's a pleasure to meet you." Then in an aside to the receptionist, he said, "I'm handling this one, Marie, it's fine. Just get her checked into a room."

"Wow," was Izzy's response to her first glimpse of the good doctor. To her credit though, she pulled herself together and reached out to shake his hand. Halfway through, her face crumpled as another contraction hit.

"Oh, ow... ow, ow, ow," she muttered, pulling her hand back to clutch at her stomach which was once again, visibly rippling.

Carlisle immediately reached to support her and called for a wheelchair. Now eager to be of help, the receptionist brought one right away. Carlisle helped her into the chair and started pushing her through the doors.

Izzy craned her neck to look back at Esme and Carlisle slowed to a stop. "Stay with me!" she said, sounding panicked. Then she seemed to realize how inappropriate her request was to ask of a near-stranger. "Never mind, I'm sure you have plenty of other things to do, and you've done so much already."

Esme squatted down to be at Izzy's eye level. "I'm not going to leave until you want me to." She could see Carlisle grinning at her generosity, but it was Izzy's relieved smile that lit the room.

TBC.

Author's note: This is going to be a fairly short, two part story, with some not very graphic scenes of childbirth in the next chapter. You have been warned, please let me know if you don't think the rating is appropriate. Please review and let me know what you think!