A/N: I began writing this story after coming across another fanfiction centered around what would have happened if Jacob and Bella took up Edward's offer for "puppies" in Breaking Dawn. The idea intrigued me, but after a few chapters, I just couldn't read anymore. Everything was too clean and pretty and out of character for what was really going on. This is my attempt at taking a really dark storyline and seeing what details would need to change in order for the characters to follow that plot and still stay true to themselves. I tried to treat it delicately, but fair warning, please do not continue reading this story if you are uncomfortable with the topic of abortion and loss.

Edward POV

Bella was sitting up in her hospital bed staring out at the endless expanse of trees in the back yard. Or maybe she was staring at her own gaunt reflection in the window, or at nothing at all. No matter how long I had known her, I could never become used to the frustration of not knowing her thoughts, but I didn't need to read her mind to see the pain she felt now.

"Bella, darling?" I placed a tray on the swivel table beside the bed. She looked distant, like she didn't hear.

"Hmm?"

"Why don't you have something to eat? Esme made you some vegetable soup."

"Thank you," she said, still looking out the window.

"What are you looking at?"

"Nothing. Just thinking about things. About the future."

I couldn't help but feel bitter at her answer. At this rate, the future couldn't be more than a few weeks for Bella. I was was about to lose the love of my life—no, of my existence—and I was powerless to do anything about it.

"Will you promise me something, Edward?" Bella asked.

"What is it, my love?" I was careful about responding with "anything" anymore. Bella had been making a lot of impossible requests lately, and the last time I gave in to one, it put her in this hospital bed.

Bella patted her growing midsection.

"Promise me that you'll find a way to tell Charlie. Not about all of this," she gestured to the bed and the cup of blood I had subtly brought in with the soup, "but about him. Promise me you'll take him to meet Charlie when he's ready."

"Bella, please," I pleaded. I hated when she talked like this, as though she were giving a verbal will with every breath she had left. Maybe she had accepted her imminent death as inevitable, but I would not.

When she turned to face the window again, I couldn't help but notice her neck and the pale skin stretched over strained veins. Her blood still called to me, but it was quieter now. Weaker. Her heart was pumping twice as hard and being half as effective. She wouldn't last long enough to bring another life into the world, much less spare her own.

"You can't do this to yourself, Bella. I am sorry to my core for doing this to you," I told her. "Please, just let Carlisle save you."

"No. I want Carlisle to save him. And you know there's still a chance you can save me too and turn me before it's too late." Bella reached out and held my hand. "I love you, but this is what I want."

"I know you want to do this, but Bella, it can't survive. You won't last long enough to give it—'him'—a fighting chance. He's going to die, and you're going to die, and then what will this all have been worth? You're sacrificing yourself for a battle you can't win! You—"

"Knock knock!" Alice invited herself inside. I had heard her coming, of course, but I needed to say how I felt. I had to change Bella's mind, and Alice interrupting wasn't going to help. Unless…no. I couldn't do that.

Can't you see you're upsetting her?

"She needs to be upset. She's killing herself for nothing!" I lashed out at Alice's unspoken thought. I so rarely raised my voice, but I was desperate to save her.

Bella started crying, and I hated myself more than I already did for doing all of this to her. Alice stopped at the bed and gently stroked her shoulder.

"What about the baby, Edward?" she choked between sobs. "You have always been so selfless, ready to sacrifice your own happiness for someone else. It's part of what I love about you. How can you be so…so…SELFISH about this!"

"Bella, please! I would do anything in my power to keep you safe. If wanting you to stay alive is selfish, then yes. I'm selfish."

"You would risk an innocent life so you wouldn't have to lose me."

I cringed because she was right. I knew I deserved the accusation, but I couldn't bring myself to feel any differently about the situation. That thing killing my Bella was far from innocent.

"I know you don't want to believe it, love, but there is no happy ending here. It's not a matter of trading one life for another. I know you want to have this baby, and I know that you're willing to give your own life to make that happen. It is one of the strongest and bravest choices you could make, and I admire you for it. But it's all in vain. There are only two possible outcomes here: You let Carlisle help you live, or you and the baby both die. There is no scenario, with or without you, where that baby lives. It's going to kill you before you can bring it to term. Given those odds, yes, I pick keeping you alive. Please live, Bella. Let Carlisle save you, and we can find another way."

Bella's sobs turned to a silent stream of tears.

"Alice, what do you see?" she asked, ignoring my plea of reason.

"I'm sorry, Bella, still nothing." Alice replied.

Bella turned over to face the window with her back to us once again.

"I'm tired," she announced. I knew it was our cue to leave.

"We'll be right down the hall, Bella. I love you."

Alice followed me out into the hall and shut the door behind her, and I gestured for her to come with me. We sat on the love seat in Alice's room, close enough to run to Bella's side in milliseconds, but far enough that she wouldn't overhear.

"She's getting worse, Edward."

"And you're sure you still see nothing about the outcome in your visions?" I had probed her mind over and over and seen the same blank haze Alice had seen, but I kept asking, hoping that something would change for the better.

Alice shook her head. "Still nothing."

The first time Alice confessed to the blind spot, Bella had adopted her own twisted interpretation. If Alice couldn't see the outcome, she reasoned, it must be because an outcome hadn't been decided on. Her fate was still up in the air, which meant there was a small glimmer of hope that the baby could survive. And she wasn't going to let us save her as long as she clung to that hope.

"I try to see and all I get is emptiness. But it's so strange. Normally I get at least a glimpse of a scene, or sometimes a sequence of quickly changing scenes when things are undecided. Sometimes it's blurry. But it's never just…void. I don't know what to make of it. It's almost like there is a course, but something is blocking my sight" she confessed.

"Alice," I primed myself for what I was about to ask of her. Bella was right, I was selfish to the core.

"I need you to do something for Bella. And you can never tell anyone, not even Carlisle and Esme."

A frown crossed Alice's porcelain face as I explained myself.

"Tell her you had a vision."

"Edward! No." Alice gasped, and I knew she understood exactly what I was suggesting.

"It's the only way. She is as headstrong and stubborn as she is beautiful. It is an amazing quality, but she is standing up for the wrong thing this time! You know she can't survive this, vision or no vision. We all know it. Sometimes I walk into her room when she's sleeping, and it feels like she's laying in a coffin instead of a hospital bed, like we're all just waiting for her to stop breathing . We can't just sit back and wait for her to die."

I hunched over with my head in my hands, begging some other option to present itself. We were out of time for other options, and I knew it.

"She will never forgive you if you do this, Edward."

"I would rather her find out and be alive to hate me than the alternative. Alice, you know it's the only way to convince her. She doesn't understand what she's doing. She's too selfless to let herself make the right decision."

We had all taken turns trying to explain the consequences of this decision to her. The only one of us who remotely believed that it might be worth it to try to have the baby was Rose. I understood why, but I hated her for egging on Bella's suicidal plan and fueling the hope that Bella had no right to have. Rose cared more about that baby than she ever cared about Bella.

"Edward, she's my best friend. This would be the deepest betrayal of her life from both of us. If she finds out, it will destroy her and our entire family. Are you willing to risk all of that?"

"I am. I have spent every hour since we found out she was pregnant thinking of how to save her. This is the only way."

I was sure of it, because I knew in my heart there was no way Bella could survive the pregnancy. And I knew deep down in the darkest part of my soul, that even with the tiniest chance that the murderer in her womb survived, I could never love the thing that killed my darling Bella. This decision would tear Bella apart, but she would heal with time. And agreeing to let Carlisle abort the fetus and save her would give her the time she needed to move past all of this. If having a child was so important to her, we would find a way, safely, after she was better.

"I don't like it, but I believe you, and I agree." Alice grasped my hand and put another hand on my shoulder.

"The options we have are horrible, every one of them. Either she dies with the baby, or she makes a decision that will haunt her for the rest of her life."

I'm doing this for you, not Bella.

I picked the unspoken thought from her brain. She knew this wasn't what Bella wanted. But what Bella wanted was a fairytale that couldn't be, and this was the best alternative we had.

"We can never tell anyone else, Alice. Not even Jasper."

"I'll take it to my grave," she whispered.

It might have been a joke under other circumstances, but there was nothing funny about it. My sister threw her arms around my neck, and we held each other for a long time, shaking from the tears we couldn't shed and the decision Bella couldn't make.