Disclaimer- Stephenie Meyer owns, NOT ME!!

A/N- This one is Human AU, in the Blackbird Fly universe. If you haven't read that one, you probably won't recognize some of the original characters.

“Would it make you feel any better to have a new bracelet?” Edward asked.

“No,” I said.

“New shoes?” he asked.

“I already have on a new pair,” I said, putting on my earrings.

“Do you think we should tell anybody before tonight?” he asked.

“Let’s let this be one big announcement,” I said. “We’ve waited long enough.”

We went down the stairs. I wondered if we were going to have to move.

At Volterra, the Art Gallery where Alice worked, there were already people milling about. Alice cut her way through the crowd towards me. “Bella!” she cried. She hugged me. “You look great! Hi, Edward! Everybody’s talking about your prints, Bella.”

“Oh, that’s great,” I said.

Edward seemed to know how to work a room better than me. I saw my friend Gina with her husband, Paul. “Hi!” she cried. She ran up and hugged me. “I think this is going great! Hi, Edward!”

“Hi, Gina,” Edward said.

“Alex is here, she’s in the broom closet with one of the waiters,” Gina said. We both giggled. “I hope you’re having a good time, Bella.”

“I am,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “I heard some really rich-sounding people arguing over the one of the little ethnic girl with the butterfly.”

“Wendi?” I asked. “Yeah, she’s supposedly a little Angel. Don’t be fooled.”

Gina laughed. “It’s only the terrible twos,” she said. "She'll outgrow it."

"Her parents are here tonight," I said.

Edward went to get a drink for me. I stuck by Gina, and eventually, Alex arrived, looking a little tousled, but happy. I saw a few glances between her and one of the waiters.

Edward introduced me to a few people who complimented me on my work. Liz and Ted had sent a bouquet in my name, congratulating me, although they couldn’t be here. Despite how close I was to her, I preferred not have her there- Liz could tell so much about me just by looking at me- and Edward, especially, for that matter. Liz put little to no faith in things like psychic ability and fortune telling, but all she had to do was look into Edward’s eyes and she could tell immediately what was happening in his life, without him even saying a word. There had been some fortune-tellers in her family line, but they had all met terrible endings- drunken husbands who ended up beating them to death under either the oppressive communism or the prejudices against Russian/Ukrainian immigrants in Cold-War America. I wondered sometimes if they saw that coming, and that’s why Liz refused to look into that, herself. I had the feeling she did believe in it, but she didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t hold anything against her for that.

After a few hours of mingling, Alice took a microphone and tapped on her wineglass with a fork.

“Hi everyone, I’m Alice Whitlock, tonight’s director. I want to thank you all for coming to A Season in Grey. This show was photographed by one of my very best friends in the world, Isabella Masen, who is here with us tonight,” Alice said. She tended to sparkle a little bit when she got to speak on stage. A few camera flashes went off. Some newspapers had come to cover the event. “All the proceeds will go to the Seattle Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders Chapter.” She introduced the local president of ANRED and let her talk for a few minutes about statistics. It wasn’t anything new, nothing I hadn’t heard before.

“Thank you for that,” Alice said, after a round of polite applause. “Bella would like to say a few words about the treatment of eating disorders in this country.”

I felt a little nauseous, but Edward squeezed my hand. “Go on,” he muttered in my ear. I nodded. I went up to the podium and Alice hugged and kissed me.

“Break a leg,” Alice muttered, covering the mike with her hand.

I stepped up to the podium. A few camera flashes went off, and I felt weak. I could hardly see. I felt like I was going to throw up. I looked down at my note cards I had prepared for the night. “Hi, everybody, I’m Isabella Swan Masen. As you know, the theme of this show is inpatient treatment and the health care industry and a few other random pictures that turned out really well.” There was slight smattering of applause. “If you haven’t guessed by now, I have lived with anorexia and associated eating disorders for over ten years of my life. While I may look healthy, now, I will always be fighting this disease. It’s like an addiction, like alcoholism. You only go into remission, like cancer, and then you cross your fingers that you don’t get it, again. Eating disorders are a very serious issue in this country, the most prevalent one we have is Compulsive Overeating. Yet, there is little to no treatment readily available to the victims. My own treatment was a short stay in an inpatient facility until I had reached a healthy weight. At that time, my insurance stopped paying for treatment. Treatment was close to a thousand dollars a day, and my father and I couldn’t afford that. Despite my improvement, I was forced to leave inpatient treatment and was sent home. My condition, and all the improvement I made, deteriorated over time. It was a height and weight chart in an insurance reviewer’s office that determined my length of treatment. They never sat in on any of my counseling sessions, they never toured the facilities, they just called and said that they weren’t paying anymore in five days. You would all agree, that isn’t fair for someone who doesn’t have any association with the patient’s condition other than what’s on paper to determine the treatment of the disease. That is why ANRED is starting a campaign to change the way the heath care industry is treating eating disorders. We wish to see the length of inpatient treatment determined by the clinic’s counselors, not the insurance companies. The companies, if it is in their policy covers it, will cover inpatient treatment until the clinic chooses to release the patient to outpatient therapy. Most of the deaths related to eating disorders in this country are suicides. The reason behind that is because of the depression from feeling they’ll never make it into remission because they’ll never receive proper treatment. In Argentina, there was a law passed to give Anorexics the right to doctor-assisted suicide, because the government deemed the disease hopeless. I believe that this is a travesty, because eating disorder remission is possible in full with the proper treatment in licensed facilities. I personally, was blessed with some very generous family friends who donated towards my treatment- they paid for an additional six weeks, in which I prepared to go into an outpatient program. It was new lease on life. Anorexia is not hopeless. Frustrating, yes, but not hopeless. Even if you don’t purchase any of the prints tonight, please consider donating to ANRED’s fund to change inpatient treatment in this country. Thank you.”

Again, a polite smattering of applause.

When I got back to Edward, there were a few reporters talking to him. They had figured out that we were married. “Hi, love,” he said pulling me into his arm. “You did really well.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m feeling pretty sick right now.”

“I understand,” he said, stroking my hair back off my neck.

“Great job, Bella!” Alice said, coming by to hug me. “Are you feeling OK?”

“Me and public speaking don’t mix,” I said.

“Come on, let’s go to the ladies’ room,” she said, taking my hand.

In the restroom, Alice wet down a paper towel and sponged off my forehead. “No panic attacks, right?” she asked.

“Not quite,” I said. “I’m still feeling a little nauseous, though.”

“I know,” Alice said. “Are you going to puke?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. Alice helped me up by wrapping an arm under my shoulders, and helping me into a stall. I felt her hand on my stomach, and I tensed up.

“Bella!?” she cried. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“No wonder you’re throwing up!” she cried.

“I haven’t thrown up, yet!” I cried.

“When were you going to tell me this time?” Alice asked.

“After everybody left tonight,” I said. “We didn’t want to jinx it.”

“How far along are you?” she asked.

“About ten weeks,” I said. “It’s further along than last time.”

“I’m so happy for you! You wanted to get pregnant, right? Edward wanted you to have a baby, too, right?” she asked.

“Yes, we both thought this year would be a good time to get pregnant,” I said. “We’ve just been nervous that I couldn’t carry this one through.”

“Well, you’re through the first trimester, almost,” Alice said. “Does Edward want a girl or a boy?”

“He said he doesn’t care as long as the baby and I end up healthy, but I think he secretly wants a girl,” I said. “I want a boy. Less drama with boys.”

“Does anybody else know?” she asked.

“Just Angela,” I said. “I told her over the phone.”

“I can’t believe you told her and not me!” Alice said.

“Well, she’s had two kids already!” I cried. “She knows the drill!”

“Well, I suppose,” Alice said. “I just got up there and bragged about how you and I were best friends,” she pouted.

“And Ang is our third in our trio,” I said. “Alice, you and Jasper aren’t planning on having kids any time soon. Edward and I wanted to get started within a year of getting married. I just went to Ang because she knows what to expect.”

“I suppose,” Alice muttered, her lips pursing.

“Charlie doesn’t even know, yet. We haven’t even told Ted and Liz,” I said.

“When are you going to announce it?” Alice asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Because I’ve got baby showers to plan!” Alice cried, leaving the stall.

I wanted to shout ‘not right now!’ but Alice was gone.

I calmed down in the restroom and didn’t puke. When I was feeling better, I went out to the gallery. Edward was waiting with a fresh ginger ale for me.

“Alice knows,” I said. “She’s already planning the baby shower.”

“That sounds like Alice,” Edward said.

“Attention everyone!” Alice was back up at the podium. “Everyone, please, settle down. Please tell Bella and her husband Edward congratulations.” The room quietened down. “Because I just found out that they’re expecting.”

“I’m gonna kill that little pixie,” Edward muttered through clenched teeth.

A/N- this pregnancy is Charlotte Elizabeth Renée, Bella and Edward's first child in my universe. Alice couldn't resist outting them. And I couldn't resist writing another fanfic in the Blackbird Fly universe! Tee hee!

On a more serious note, If you're not from America or living in America, you're probably not aware of the health care crisis we have going on because our government refuses to institute universal health care for "progress sake," claiming (incorrectly) that we have the best health care system in the world (I disgress- look at Germany, for pete's sake!) because it's competitive and people have to pay for it. You pay for it one way or another- countries with universal health care have higher taxes, so you pay for it one way or another.

Only healthy people who don't need health care can afford it in America. The moment you get a chronic condition, you're considered uninsurable, and you have to get a job at giant, ugly, faceless corporation if you want affordable health care. And those corporations are rarely flexible or forgiving with your doctors appointments, time off, sick time or disability. I have been on the short end of the stick for a while with health care because of several medical problems I have. It's not fair, to say the least, not that I'm saying I want to be on welfare. I just wish I didn't have to work for a big, ugly, faceless corporation, because corporations are what's wrong with America. At the very least, all American children should have universal health care in this country, but they don't.

What Bella's speech was about was one of the problems that most people with eating disorders face when they go for treatment- the health insurance companies, if they are lucky enough to be insured, won't cover treatment after a certain amount of time or after they reach a "healthy" weight, regardless of their emotional progress. Like I've been saying, eating disorders are not really about food and weight, they're more about hating yourself and anxiety and trying to control it through OCD that makes it impossible to eat. The insurance companies rarely seem to understand that and treat eating disorders as simply vanity and nothing more. I don't know if ANRED has a campaign like that, but if they did, a couple like my Edward and Bella would probably be the unofficial spokespersons of the local campaign- a beautiful, successful, well-educated young couple, he's in the medical field with some association with the effects of eating disorders on the heart in teenagers and she has actually had one, and is an artist/photographer.