CHAPTER FIVE
ᴘᴀɴɪᴄ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ɪᴍᴘᴏssɪʙʟᴇ

How could one always seem to know how to make the impossible happen? It was a tricky ability- one that neither Alice nor Edward could see around with their own gifts. It was only right that it should be Bella who was able to create such chaos.

The information came in the form of a phone call, one that Alice had only just foreseen. We were all sitting around the living room. Rosalie sat with her sister by the sewing machine, discussing Alice's designs in a hushed tone. Esme was curled up beside Carlisle with a book. The news played faintly in the background, reporting something about a storm sweeping in up north.

The whole air of calmness seemed to shift when Alice's vision came. Her back stiffened, sharp brows creasing her face, frown gracing her lips. Rosalie nudged her to speak.

"Something is wrong," she muttered, bright eyes staring forward.

"What?" Rosalie said at the same time as I spoke: "What do you mean?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. That's the problem."

In one swift second, Alice sprinted from the room, appearing another single second later with her phone in her hand. She dialled a number and held it to her ear. Under my curious gaze, she mouthed a name in answer. Bella.

"Hi, Alice."

Her voice was strained on the other end of the phone. We could all hear it: the lowered tone that said she was holding something back, still in the process of deciding how to say something. Alice shook her head at herself again, and it was then obvious that Alice didn't know what was the matter, only that something most definitely was.

"Bella? Bella, are you okay?"

She didn't answer the question. "Is Carlisle there?"

"He is."

Bella's response was incoherent. Alice silently beckoned for Carlisle.

"What's wrong?" I whispered, taking her shaking arm.

"I'm not completely sure," she said before going back to the quietened phone. "Is Edward alright? Why didn't he pick up the phone."

"I don't know."

"Bella, what's going on? I just saw-"

"What did you see?" she cut her off sharply, breath ragged and quick behind her voice.

"Here's Carlisle."

Alice passed over the phone and came to stand beside me. From those few moments, she looked... dishevelled. It was the only word I could use to describe her wide-eyed expression and spikey hair, and it was a word I never imagined using in regards to a vampire with such effortless beauty. A hand was brought to rest over her lips, a hand tucking beneath her elbow to support it.

"Bella, what's going on?"

"I... I'm a little worried about Edward," Bella stuttered, her voice moving from loud to quiet as if she was pacing. "Can vampires go into shock?"

"Has he been harmed?"

"What exactly did you see?" Rosalie hissed from behind us.

For the hundredth time, Alice shook her head. "I- I don't know. I don't know if I want to."

"No. He's just been taken by surprise, I guess," Bella said, her voice increasing in pitch. "I think- I think... well. I might be..." She left in a pause. "Pregnant."

The almost-silent clanging of a pin dropping could have been heard. Rosalie's face dropped. Had she been human, she would have paled to an even lighter shade of white than her own, current colour. The expression that masked her face was one of pure confusion, nothing else. But beneath it held shock, as the rest of us did, and something else- a hope she'd tried to keep away from Bella at all times.

It shouldn't have been possible.

Carlisle and Esme shared a worried look. Perhaps they'd tried to keep the glance a secret, but nothing could go past us. Alice's wrap around my elbow tightened as if she was afraid she may topple over.

"When was the first day of your last menstrual cycle?"

There was no pause. She'd already calculated. "Sixteen days before the wedding."

"How do you feel?"

"Strange." A shiver seemed to run through her body at the sound of her voice. "And this is going to sound even more bizarre. I know it's far too early for any of this, and maybe I am crazy. But I'm absurd dreams and eating all the time and crying and throwing up and... and... I swear something moved inside me just now."

Carlise was silent for a moment. Before he could say anything, she was handing the phone over.

"Edward wants to talk to you," she said, and then Edwards's voice- the one we'd been waiting for- filled the room.

"Is it possible?"

"I'm afraid I have to say I don't know, Edward. It shouldn't be, but- you have to understand that nothing like this has ever been studied before," Carlisle said, his face frightfully calm. "I will research and treat her to the best of my abilities. You just concentrate on coming home safely. Take the next flight."

"Is Bella okay?"

"You heard everything," Carlisle said with a sigh. "She'll be okay until they get back."

"What do we tell Charlie?" Alice said. "If he finds out she came home and said nothing to him, he'll freak."

"Yeah and he'll freak even more if he finds out she's pregnant with a vampire's baby," I said, the words sounding surreal as they passed my lips.

"Let's just focus on making sure Bella is safe and well," Carlisle said.

"Yeah, she might not even be pregnant," Emmett added from the corner of the room.

"And if she is?"

"I can't see her letting this baby go," I said.

Bella was stubborn. Even worse, she was resolute at the worst of times. The past years were example enough. She'd refused to let the Cullens be in harm's way because of her, and she'd done just as much to bring them back into her life. I remembered the nights I'd stayed by her house as she wallowed in fear. Bella would go through that again, rather than give something up. A baby was the perfect thing for her to grip onto mentally. Wasn't it, in a twisted way, a miracle?

"I'm going to go with Carlisle," Alice said, breaking me from a trance with her hands resting against my forearms.

"I'll stay here in case there's any more news."

She kissed my head before she left, clearing the room with her movements. Emmett and Jasper had disappeared first, Carlisle and Alice soon after. Esme lingered by the doorway before she headed outside, sitting on the swinging chair by the porch, letting the sun kiss her porcelain skin.

I almost didn't sense Rosalie. Her movements were softer than they usually were, letting her glide from the door and then back again a few moments later, phone in her hand. Rosy lips were pulled between her sharp teeth, her footsteps ghostly against the solid, wood floors. It was her thoughts that were loud. Jasper would have been pained, trying to calm her down. The loudness of her head could have made Edward deaf.

I could read nothing but her face, and even then it was as if reading beneath dulled lights a passage that had been torn to pieces. Rosalie's head tilted backwards, silently asking me to follow her. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, the furthest area from the rest of the Cullens, she handed me her phone.

"It's Bella. You should hear this," she said, voice void of any clues.

"Elide?"

"I'm here."

"I need to know you're with me," Bella said, and my silence was questioning enough. "I can't lose this baby. Edward- he's scared. He'd rather kill it than let it hurt me. I can't lose it. these dreams- they mean something. This is right. I know it is."

Her words were laced with pure desperation. I almost imagined her to be on her knees beside the phone, hands clasped together, begging.

"Please, Elide."

"You're sure? I can't convince you otherwise?"

"If this baby dies, I die too," she said slowly, letting her words sink in.

Rosalie's eyes closed. I let out a sigh.

"Nothing will happen to your baby," I said. "I promise."

I could imagine Alice's anger at the promise. To put Bella's baby's life as equal to her own was not something to be taken lightly. But I'd taken the side of Bella and Rosalie once before. It was bound to happen again. Her mind was made, and if that was what she wanted, no one had the right to take that away.

"I promise too," Rosalie added, her voice somehow reaching the other end of the phone.

"Thank you," she said, letting out a sigh of relief. "I have to go, Edward is coming back. I'll see you soon."

As the call ended, Rosalie sent me one last, long look before she disappeared behind the doorway.

It was genius, really, asking Rose to help her in such a way. If there was one person who would fight against the rest of the Cullens for the sake of a baby, it was her. She would hold no regard for Bella. It was a perfect agreement. And it was exactly that which scared me the more I thought about it.

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