F.T.A. Failure to Appear

Chapter Four

Chapter Four
Baby Fever
Grace Cullen-Swan

"Ow." Bella sucked in a deep breath, clutching her ribcage as she readjusted herself.

"What's wrong?" Charlie asked worriedly, putting down his knife and fork as he got up from the dinner table and went to her side.

"I'm fine." She laughed at him. "He just kicked me a little harder than normal."

"Sounds like the baby might've broken a rib." I frowned, doing a quick examination of the bones on that side of her ribcage.

"Broken?" Charlie worried.

"Normal human babies have been known to break ribs." I told them. "And with Bella being at around thirty-five weeks, there's not much time left to go."

"There's only a week left until Christmas break and everyone thinks you're just about ready to pop. Do you think he'll be ready by then?" Bella asked me worriedly.

"I think so." I nodded. "At the very worst, we'll induce labor a little early. The baby is perfectly able to survive outside of the womb at this point."

"Okay." Bella nodded. "I'm just going to go up to bed. I'm so tired." She stretched as she got up from the table carefully.

"Here, take your tea with you." I told her, handing her her water bottle before kissing her head and sending her upstairs.

"This is normal?" Charlie questioned me the moment Bella's door shut.

"Perfectly." I nodded. "Honestly, I'm just surprised the baby isn't hurting her more than it is. It's much stronger than her, obviously, but I think that increasing the blood from one bottle a day to two has really helped lately."

"I do too." He nodded. "She's been really stable. I think she should stay home tomorrow. I know we said she could go down to the reservation, but I think she should rest."

"I agree." I smiled at him over my shoulder as I went to clean up her dishes. "We really need to go shopping soon. We have nothing for a baby, well, besides the gifts people have been dropping off at my classroom."

"I'm off tomorrow. We can go together." He told me, joining me at the sink with his plate before picking up a dish towel to help me.

"Great. It's a date then." I giggled and he kissed me sweetly.

In the morning, after making sure Bella and the baby were fed and settled in for the day, Charlie and I got in my car and headed towards Port Angeles. We decided that the one baby specific store in Forks was not a good idea as we didn't want to be pestered today and so getting lost in a town like Port Angeles seemed much better.

I think he and I both were having fun searching store racks for cute clothes and blankets. He would find something he liked and hold it up from across the store just to show me, which would make me giggle at him, which would make him laugh at my giggling.

"Oh, you two are just so cute!" The store owner came up to us as we were looking through their crib selection. "I've been watching you two flirt with each other all morning." She laughed. "How far along are you?"

"Just a week to go." I smiled nervously.

"Oh! Wow!" Her eyes widened. "How exciting!"

"Very." Charlie nodded.

"So, most first time moms get everything and then some early, what all do you have?" She asked us.

"Nothing." Charlie shook his head and I elbowed him playfully to make her laugh.

"He's got a teenager from a previous marriage and I've got two adopted teenagers myself, so there hasn't been much time to get everything ready." I giggled.