w: slash (Jacob/Edward), death of background characters, vampires don't function the same, Edward is sick, accidental baby acquisition
It all starts with Edward being late for work. He's not even sure how he's managed it, as a being that can't even sleep, but he'd somehow miscalculated the amount of time he had to get ready. He's running around, grabbing haphazardly at whatever he can get his hands on that looks important before shoving it into his satchel. He'd showered, groomed himself, and dressed in record time even for someone as fast as him. He was so sure that he'd stumbled into some much needed luck this morning right up until he almost broke his leg in his attempt to get out of the doorway. He hits his leg so hard on whatever wretched thing the mailman had most likely placed on his porch, that he almost cracks his skull open on the concrete as he narrowly avoids falling directly on top of whatever it is.
"Fuck," he huffs out, turning towards the obstructing object with the primary goal of getting it into the house so that he can speed to work. However, he immediately freezes in his tracks, staring over at the thing in disbelief. He had to have knocked his head on the ground and passed out. He's probably laid out cold and the neighbors were most likely calling for an EMT. So, if his theory is correct and he is, in fact, unconscious, this must be some kind of elaborate trick his brain is playing on him. His brain, after being cracked like an egg, has presented him with a car seat. Considering he's probably currently laid out like a chalk outline, he decides to take a peek. What's the harm? He stares down at the car seat, which looks like it's meant for a newborn, and slowly reaches out to pull the hood back. He's maybe expecting something like discarded trash to be inside, maybe some old newspapers. Maybe some weird nightmare fuel, considering that this is all in his head.
Instead, he finds himself staring down at a tiny infant that can't be more than a few days old, quietly snoozing on his doorstep.
He's ready to wake up now.
This "dream" is getting old. He waits, expecting to randomly wake up on an EMT truck with some stranger staring down at him asking questions he couldn't answer.
Instead, he's met with a piercing cry that scares the shit out of him. He reels back, stumbling up from the ground, and looking around as if his neighbors seeing him with a baby would be the worst thing that's happened to him this morning.
"No, no, no, no, no..." He chants, in a panic pacing the length of the porch. He's a doctor. He knew how to check to make sure the baby was breathing, if it had any ailments, and what medicine to prescribe for said ailments. He wasn't a babysitter. He didn't know what to do to stop it from crying. Was it hungry or wet? He had no clue and wasn't really equipped with the supplies to handle such a thing.
He doesn't know what to do, so he scoops the car seat up and rushes out to his car, completely forgetting about his punctuality as he peels out of his driveway.
Jacob stares at him for a good minute, one eye peeking out of his front door as he looks from Edward to the baby and then back to Edward.
"What exactly do you expect me to do?" Jacob finally says, eyes flicking back down to the car seat. He looks as if he's dealing with some sort of enemy. His eyes are cautious as he scans over the contraption like there is a potential threat waiting inside.
"I don't know," Edward answers truthfully, "I don't know shit about babies."
He's not a baby guy. He's never held a baby over the hundred years he's been roaming this Earth. He had answers for all types of problems, but he didn't know what to do with a being that could barely support it's own head.
"You're a doctor." Jacob says as if he needed some kind of reminder.
"Yeah, I can check them for illnesses and prescribe medicine." He makes a show out of flipping the cover off of the baby's car seat and checking their chest with the stethoscope that was still dangling around his neck.
He checks them for a fever. He even checks their cognitive abilities before exasperatedly looking back over to Jacob.
"That's the extent of what I can do." Edward's trying to keep his tone even. He's desperate for help at this point, not exactly having any other choices. He hadn't thought much into where he was headed when he hopped into the car, he'd just driven until he felt like he was at the right destination.
Jacob was still staring at him. He hasn't slammed the door in his face yet, so Edward must be doing something right.
"You're a police officer. I thought maybe you could try to find their parents." Edward says with a sigh. He hadn't thought of that until now, truthfully.
"I'm a police officer who's off-duty. You want to file some kind of report, go to the police station." Jacob says with a sigh.
The police station.
Edward stares down at the baby for a minute, before slowly turning away from the door and heading to his vehicle. He straps them in, despite his overly expensive car not being made for tiny passengers, and hopped into the front seat.
It feels wrong. From the too-bright, flickering lights to the way people just sort of walked passed him as if he wasn't standing there holding a clunky car seat.
He eventually catches the attention of two female officers who saunter up to him as soon as their eyes catch sight of the car seat. Officer Weber and Stanley gasp loudly as they rush over to get a peak at what was inside.
"Aw, what's their name, Doc?" Jessica says, cooing at the baby who stares blankly at the both of them.
"I don't know," Edward admits, "someone left them on my porch."
His explanation seems to snap them out of their light-hearted, barely legible banter with the baby. They straighten up to actually acknowledge him.
"Who would abandon a baby on a porch?" Jessica huffs as she leads him over to her desk.
He doesn't have an answer for this or any of the following questions she asks him.
No, there wasn't a note left with them.
No, he hadn't peeked inside of their diaper to see if it was a boy or girl. Angela does the honors for him.
"Girl." She answers with a nod of her head.
There aren't any clues on her as to what her name is or what her parent's names are.
"Well, maybe we can get her little picture out there maybe some relatives will come forward. Until then, we can look at a list of missing children and see if anyone fitting her description is on the list." Angela says with a shrug.
She's young. She looks just like every other baby at this point. She has no defining features to speak of besides her brown eyes and dark hair. He tried not to audibly huff at the ridiculous thought.
"Well, for now, she's yours." Jessica said with a smile that Edward assumes was meant to be encouraging. She seemed happy for him. Edward glances down at the car seat to see a pair of dark eyes staring back up at him.
What the hell was he going to do?
His life wasn't set up for a baby. He had two jobs as a doctor and a professor. He drove a flashy car and lived in a large non-childproofed house. He didn't even have regular food let alone baby formula.
He admittedly thought that maybe they would keep her and call Child Protective Services. Then, this would all just be a really strange story he could tell to Jasper and Emmett who would laugh at his expense.
Though, according to Angela, there was some kind of delay in the system where they couldn't get a social worker to come and pick her up.
So, he walks out the police station with the car seat hooked on his arm and climbs back into his car. Part of him wants to slam his head into the steering wheel, but he can't drive her around with a concussion so he slowly pulls out of his parking space and heads for the supermarket.
It's a more taxing trip than he'd previously thought, not even able to pick out diapers without some woman with a child in her basket pulling up next to him to try to get a peek at her. Some of them are bold enough to use her as some kind of weird segway into hitting on him.
"Sorry, I'm running late and I really need to get her home. My husband's probably getting worried." He says to one woman whose eyes go wide as she quickly pushes away her basket with her four-year-old son inside. He peeks over her shoulder to wave goodbye to Edward before he's whisked onto the next aisle by his mother.
He's got diapers, about three different types of formula just in case the others don't agree with her, bottles, diaper rash cream, lotion, baby soap, towels, a couple of onesies, and a throbbing headache. He's doing a quick once over before heading to checkout when another woman wanders onto the aisle with her toddler. He doesn't look at her for too long, eyes focusing on the shelves and the baby in his basket. She's back to sleeping, clearly bored of this trip.
"Oh, look, Tyler!" He hears her squeak from behind him and he can feel her eyes on his back.
"A baby." Her son babbles from her cart.
His back stiffens with anticipation. How was he going to get out of hearing about this woman's life story? Whether their interactions be because they're enchanted by a baby or by Edward himself, he'd have to hear everything from what they did in high school to how they'd found themselves becoming a mom. In return, they'd want to know about him. How'd he find himself in a store with a baby?
He's honestly so tired that he contemplates taking off towards a register. If anything was missing, he'd just call up Jasper. The man tended not to ask too many questions.
The woman must've assumed that he couldn't hear her because now she's talking loudly about babies and how cute they are. The volume of her voice and the anxiety that the baby might wake up, make his headache worse. He's about to start doing some yelling of his own, his head whipping around when he catches sight of Jacob standing an aisle over, staring at what looks to be a can of dog food.
He wants to fall back into his prior plot where he conjures up a fake husband and rushes over to Jacob as an escape, but it's a bit more daunting when the "husband" isn't in on the plan.
"Did you adopt?" The woman asks as if Edward knows her.
"No, I gave birth to her." He says, eyes never leaving Jacob, hoping to catch his attention.
The woman stands there for a moment, completely thrown off by the explanation. Just as she goes to ask a follow-up question, Jacob finally looks away from the can and over to where Edward's standing watching him.
He and Jacob aren't necessarily friends, they are barely acquaintances. They've worked for the same police department for the past five years and they saw each other at crime scenes. Jacob had never really liked him and Edward had never really questioned why. Though, the lack of friendship was getting really inconvenient.
"You gave birth to-?"
"I really have to go, my husband's waiting." He says and takes off over to the pet aisle.
Jacob watches him as he makes his way over and he can already hear the sigh before it leaves his lips.
"I can't help you with your problem-"
"I didn't ask you to. I already went to the police station, they're working on it." Edward says hurriedly, eyes glancing over to the baby aisle. The woman had apparently sped off like the rest.
He doesn't even waste time with whatever Jacob was going to say, heading towards check-out before someone else stops him.