Edward’s POV

I had everything organised. Granted it took a lot of bribery but I didn’t care. Everything had to be perfect for Kayla. Everything. I just had one more thing to do.
I quickly ran downstairs. I needed to find Esme. I knew she was helping with the preparations for tomorrow’s wedding. Bless her. She had such a big heart. I loved her dearly and I wouldn’t have asked for a better person to be my mother. As I walked into the kitchen I could hear her arguing with Alice.
“No pink, Alice,” she said and tugging on a piece of bright pink material.
“Just a little,” Alice pouted, pulling the material.
“None.”
I watched as a tug of war went on. They were both trying to be gentle to save the fragile piece of silk in their strong hands but Alice was too determined to have her pink.
She pulled too strongly and the material ripped. Alice was left with a tiny rectangular of silk and her face fell.
“Oh no,” she cried and threw it to the floor. “I can’t use it now.”
“Good,” Esme said, though comforted Alice. “This is Kayla’s wedding and it has to be as she wants it. Not as you want it.”
“Cheer up Alice,” I said, smiling at her. “There’s always other parties you can go crazy with pink on.”
Alice threw me a big smile.
“You’re going to have parties?” she asked, excitedly. Her eyes were wide and pleading with me. I couldn’t say no to her.
“Of course,” I said, assuring her. “I’m going to have a party once Mitchell is killed. That will be something to celebrate.”
Alice’s smile faltered and Esme looked pointedly away.
“What?” I asked, even though I could hear their thoughts. I usually tried to ignore my family’s thoughts. They deserved their privacy. But now all I could hear was disappointment. I didn’t understand.
“He’s still a person, Edward,” Esme said, looking at me sadly. “No matter what he is going to do, he is still a human being.”
“Who is going to kill my future wife!” I looked at her in shock. “I thought you would understand my feelings about this.”
Alice looked uncomfortable and shifted away from me.
“Alice?” I wanted her to understand. She loved Kayla just as much as I did. Surely she would see my reason.
“I know what he’s going to do,” she said, not meeting my eyes and thinking of the Egyptian alphabet. “But you shouldn’t say stuff like that. You’re acting like you have no heart. Celebrating the death of someone.”
I stared at them both, unable to comprehend how they had turned against me so easily. I thought they would understand. Mitchell wanted to kill Kayla and I wanted to kill him for even thinking about harming her. They couldn’t expect me to still think of him as a nice person. I hadn’t liked him since the day I met him. Then again that was only because he was trying to chat up Kayla. That aside, I cannot be blamed for my thinking. It did not make me heartless to want to celebrate his death. He wanted to kill someone. How many times would I have to say that before they understood?
“I’m not heartless,” I said, quietly. “He is. He wants to kill someone, the person I love. How can you stand there and condemn me for thinking that when he’s out there plotting her death?”
I turned away from them. Was I alone in thinking this? No, Emmett would be thinking the same and Jasper would understand. He could feel my emotions so proving to him took no effort at all.
Carlisle wouldn’t. He doesn’t want to see anyone in pain. Not even those nomads who’d threatened Kayla at the beginning of our relationship. And he was reluctant about helping Charlie kill Loren. Not that Carlisle had to do any actual killing. His only job was if Loren ever did make an appearance in Forks or anywhere near it, he had to find him. He had to find him and bring him to Charlie for the murder. It wasn’t something Carlisle was happy about but it meant keeping Kayla safe and that was all he really cared about. When Kayla had gone missing from graduation, Carlisle had set out with Esme to hunt down Loren. They were unsuccessful as Loren was nowhere near Forks.
Rosalie would be on my side. She’d built up some sort of friendship with Kayla after she’d appointed her maid of honour. She would agree with me on the part for Mitchell’s death.
“Where’s Carlisle?” I asked Esme. I sounded detached. She could hear that and her eyes saddened. She was blaming herself.
“At the hospital,” she said, longing to reach out to me. “He was called in because a patient of his was trying to discharge himself even though he’s still recovering from a kidney transplant. They thinks it’s his medication.”
I nodded. Some drugs could mess with the brain and the patients could think things that weren’t exactly reality. Like thinking they could walk out of hospital completely healed when still healing from massive surgery.
“Why do you need him?” she asked me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I smiled for her. “He just has something I need.”
“Like?” Alice questioned.
“Stop being nosey,” I tapped her nose. “And don’t you dare look into the future, Alice. This is only for Kayla.”
“Is it a secret?” she gushed, her eyes wide with excitement. “I can keep a secret!”
I laughed at her excitement. This was not a secret for Alice to know. This was a private secret. No one could know. Alice was sure to leak it somehow. She could only contain so much excitement and this was something really special.
“Just do whatever you were doing before I interrupted,” I said, turning her around swiftly. “Forget I was ever here.”
Even though moments ago I wasn’t very happy with Esme and Alice, I could never stay mad at them. Esme was so loving that it felt wrong to be angry at her, as I’d done something worthy of the death penalty. And Alice was so bubbly that it wore off on you so all your anger just disappeared. They were good for me. I needed them at this moment in time. Who knows what I would be like without them?



Carlisle was just leaving a cubicle in the Emergency Room when I found him in the hospital. It was Carlisle’s day off and he was only there to attend to his patient but as always Carlisle couldn’t resist helping more people. That’s why he was on of the best doctors alive.
He smiled warmly at me when he saw me and I mirrored his smile.
“What brings you here?” he asked me. In his hands he held a clipboard. It had all the details of a patient named Joseph Mulroney. He reached into the breast pocket of his white coat and began to write notes on the Joseph’s file.
“When I became a vampire,” I began nervously. “You said you had some things of my mother’s?”
I saw Carlisle tense and then relax. He still continued to write notes.
“Yes.”
“Do you still have them?”
Carlisle looked up at me and his gold eyes were soft and fatherly.
“Of course,” he said. He placed the pen back in his pocket and put a hand on my shoulder. “I would never give them away.”
I smiled at him. When Carlisle first changed me, I’d hated what I was. I despised myself, I loathed what I’d become but after a few years of travelling and lots of thinking I came to terms with my new life. I didn’t like it but I accepted it. Until I met Kayla. As soon as I laid eyes on her, when I’d overcome the irresistible urge to kill her, I couldn’t be more grateful to be a vampire. Without Carlisle, I wouldn’t have met Kayla, I wouldn’t have known her, wouldn’t have loved her, wouldn’t be marrying her tomorrow. He was the reason this was all happening. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be standing here.
“Thank you,” I said. “There’s one thing I really want.”
“What’s that?”
“Dr Cullen?”
A female nurse was walking towards us. There was a seductive smile on her face and she thought of nothing about how much she would like to get to know Carlisle a little better.
It doesn’t matter if he’s married, she was thinking. I don’t mind one bit.
“Yes?” Carlisle answered her when she was within human earshot. She stopped next to me, completely oblivious to my existence, only seeing Carlisle.
“There’s a man in Cubicle seven,” she said, her smile never faltering. “He needs attending to. He’s being rough with me and is refusing treatment. He wants a doctor to see to him not a nurse.”
“I’m sorry, Jenna,” he said, looking down at his notes again. “I’m not on duty today. I’m only in to see a patient of mine who tried to discharge himself while still recovering from surgery. You’ll have to find another doctor.”
Jenna looked outraged that he’d turned her down. I was surprised that he’d refused to treat someone. That wasn’t Carlisle.
“Okay,” she said and spun on her heel walking away.
“Carlisle, why did you refuse to treat that man?” I asked him.
He looked up, smiling.
“There is no man in cubicle seven,” he said. “It’s closed for cleaning. A nurse spilled a patient’s coffee on the floor.”
I looked behind me to see a fuming Jenna talking to another nurse. She saw me looking and her mouth dropped. What she was thinking now would have Kayla furious.
“I should’ve guessed from her thoughts,” I said, turning away from Jenna. “All she could think about was you.”
Carlisle smiled.
“How does Esme cope with all your female admirers?” I asked. “Doesn’t she ever want to just rip their heads off?”
“She trusts me,” he answered and then looked down at the notes again. “Is that all you wanted to speak to me about?”
Esme was right to trust Carlisle. I trusted Carlisle with my life. There was no reason to doubt him. Everything about him radiated trust and honesty. I could confide in him about the one thing that had been gnawing at me for three weeks.
“There’s something else,” I said, slowly.
“Are you having doubts about the wedding?” Carlisle asked.
I shook my head and looked around me. I didn’t know how to explain to him. We were still stood outside Joseph Mulroney’s cubicle. Not that he could hear us, we were speaking too fast and too low for his human ears to pick up. I stared at the blue curtains that cordoned him off from the rest of the ER.
“Then what’s wrong?” he asked me, concern in his eyes. “You look so worried and upset.”
“There isn’t anything I want more than to marry Kayla,” I said. “But there’s something she wants more than that.”
Carlisle waited. He didn’t push me for answers. That was another great thing about him.
“A baby.”
Carlisle cleared his throat. Something vampires didn’t need to do. We never got anything stuck in our tracheas so why would our body produce an action to clear it? It was a nervous reaction to my answer. He didn’t know what to say to that.
“I know I can’t have children,” I said to him. “She knows that too but her thoughts are more often than not filled with babies. She wants a child and it hurts her that I can’t giver her that.”
I began to panic, thinking she would leave me for some human who could give her what she wanted. Would she do that? Would she leave me? She wouldn’t. Not over something like that. But many humans have left their partners because they didn’t want or couldn’t have children. Kayla wasn’t like that, was she?
“Don’t worry,” Carlisle assured me, knowing I was breaking down inside. “There are other ways for Kayla to have children.”
“Yes,” I nodded, my panic lessening. “Yes there is.”
“You two could adopt a child or look into surrogacy. Maybe Kayla could try artificial insemination. I’m sure her body isn’t like ours. She could carry a child, I’m positive.”
There was one thing wrong with each of those solutions.
“The child wouldn’t be mine,” I whispered. “Would she want another man’s child?”
“The only question here, Edward, is if you could love another man’s child.
Love another man’s child? That was debatable. I could say I could but when it actually came to it maybe I wouldn’t. But it wouldn’t only be some stranger’s child it would be Kayla’s too. She would be the mother and the baby would be part of her and I loved every part of Kayla. I don’t want to see her cry or upset or angry that she can’t have a baby and if she wanted to have another man’s child, if she wanted to go with the artificial insemination or the surrogacy or whatever then I was behind her. I would support her 100%. I wouldn’t care if the baby was an alien, if she wanted it then I’d help her.
“I don’t know, Carlisle,” I said. “I want to say yes but it might be different when it actually happens. If she has a child through one of those procedures, I don’t know how I will react. It could be the complete opposite of what I say now.”
“I understand that you’re confused right now,” he said and his face was full of sympathy for me.
“I’m more than confused.”
“You must have talked to Kayla about this? What is her view?”
I looked away and it was my turn to clear an already empty throat.
“You read her mind,” Carlisle sighed and began to walk away.
I stood there staring at his retreating back, wondering what had just happened to make him walk away from me. Was everyone against me today?
“Carlisle,” I called, walking after him. “Wait.”
He stopped walking and waited for me to catch up before continuing again. He stopped outside the hospital staff room. He waited for two seconds before opening the door and walked in. It was empty.
He sat down on an empty chair and motioned for me to sit next to him.
“You have to stay out of her mind,” he said as soon as I was seated. “It’s a private place for her and if she hasn’t discussed anything with you it’s because she doesn’t want to tell you.”
“Carlisle, I didn’t go prying into her mind,” I said, instantly knowing what he was saying. “It wasn’t like that. She let her thoughts slip out. She didn’t want me to find out she wanted children.”
“She knows you will get like this,” he sighed again and ran a hand through his immaculate blond hair. He looked tired, if that was possible for a vampire.
“I know that if I discuss this with her she’ll only want to make me happy even if it means sacrificing her own wants and needs. She won’t have a baby if she thinks it will make me happy. I don’t want to put her through this.”
For being alive as long as I have I didn’t think there would be anything I wouldn’t understand. Right now I was more confused than when I was a newborn.
“I know, son. You just have to speak to her. There’s nothing I can really do for you other than advise you.”
Carlisle would be here for us. He could tell us what to do, help Kayla through everything, help me through everything. I just needed to have his word that he would. Not that I didn’t trust him because I did. I just need his assurance.
“If we do decide to have a child, Carlisle,” I said, awkwardly. “Will you help us?”
Carlisle put his arms around me in a fatherly hug.
“I’d do anything to help you.”