Disclaimer: All the Twilight stuff belongs to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm just playing in her sandbox.

Author's Note: Sorry the chapter is late, Fanfiction would not work on Saturday nor last night when I tried to post this!

Chapter 21 Uncertain Actions

I looked around, taking note of each and every member of my family and my friends and realized what a lucky bastard I really was. My fucked up life had turned on a dime when I married the girl that was now in my arms. I loved her more than anything, and I would spend the rest of my life appreciating all of the blessings that I fucking had right there on that lawn with me.

Jessica POV

July. It was fucking July and I was seven months pregnant. What the hell was I going to do? I didn't wasn't to be here, in this town. I had wanted out of Forks my whole life, longing for the big city lights and a better future than I could possibly have here in this nothing town. I had no idea when I moved here last December that I'd be pregnant and in this kind of a mess. I thought I was getting away from a mess, not running to one. I was tense before I ever got to work, worried about the attorney's meeting I had set for tomorrow after work. Edward had not relented one single bit, claiming that he would never give me money to settle anything because it would appear that he was guilty of something that he didn't do. The man annoyed the hell out of me. I had put up with his lack of interest in anything, including sex, for the three months or so that we went out but I had never thought him to not be giving. He had always been very generous with his money . . . till now.

I clocked in and did report. Though I was usually the floor secretary, we were short staffed and I had to take three patients this morning. To make matters much worse, one of them was Edward's patient.

"Shelly, I'm not supposed to have contact with Dr. Cullen, can you swap me out on this patient of his?" I asked the charge nurse.

She looked at me like I just asked her to rob a bank for me telling saying, "Miss Stanley, if you feel you are not capable of fulfilling your job in a professional manner, perhaps you should not be here at all?"

Bitch.

"I was just trying to follow Dr. Carlisle Cullen's orders, Shelly, and stay the hell away from Dr. Edward Cullen. If I'm asked, I'll let him know that you thought better of his request and assigned me one of his patients anyway."

"Fine," she smiled as she switched me to a different patient. I found out the reason for her smile the first time I checked on the patient. I had no idea it was possible to be that grouchy and needy at the same time. Absolutely nothing pleased the woman and I was never happier than when it was my turn to go to lunch. That is . . . until I got to the cafeteria.

There they sat, holding hands and being gooey with each other, Edward and the mouse he called a wife. I had no idea what the hell he saw in her. It continued to amaze me that he had been with her for so long and still acted like they were dating . . . flirting and kissing in public. I don't think I had ever seen him with her that he wasn't touching her in some way, or her touching him. The girl had nothing on me and it infuriated me to even see her, let along to see her with him.

He had never been that way with me. Ever. I had done every single thing I could think of to be nice and extremely thoughtful while I had been dating him, taking extra care with everything I wore and said, even lessening the amount of makeup I wore because he preferred less. I thought I had been making progress. He even called me back a couple of times when I asked him to and I had accompanied him to his parents house on several occasions. Meeting the parents, wasn't that supposed to mean something?

Now, with her at his side, he ignored me completely. I couldn't even say hello to him and get a pleasant response . . . or any response at all, I thought as I stood in line to pay for my salad. Shit, here he comes, be calm . . be calm. "Hello, Edward," I said as he reached by me to grab condiments from the shelves. I'm sure he would have waited till I had paid if he had noticed me there, but he probably paid no attention till he was right on me. "Jessica," he replied and nodded, returning to his table. At least he responded to me, though he made no eye contact. It was an improvement.

I returned to the floor, having eaten alone and in record time. I wouldn't bother but I kept little food at home, walking from the grocery store was difficult these days. After checking my patients I returned to the station to add notes to their files and make sure everything was documented. Edward was there, at the file rack, apparently about to do orders. I took a deep breath and walked in, sitting down with my charts at one of the stations. I don't know what I was thinking, or even if I was thinking, but I got up to get a different chart, and instead of going back to my seat I walked over to the desk where he was and put a hand on his shoulder. No one was around and I just wanted a quiet word with him.

"Edward, I don't want to fight with you, please."

"Jessica, you should have thought about that before you accused me of fathering your child."

"But, Edward. We were close once, can we please just not fight?"

He stood, abruptly causing my hand to slide down his arm as he moved away from me. "Don't touch me, do you understand. We are not even supposed to speak, you know that," he snapped, tossing the chart to the station desk and turning to leave.

"Edward! Don't treat me like this, we meant too much to each other!" I yelled, a crowd starting to gather halfway down the hall from us. I didn't care. Aside from the money, I missed his company . . . we were friends . . .

"We were friends, Jessica. You did this," he said, gesturing to the space between us, "We could have remained friends if you hadn't accused me of things that never happened."

"But, Edward . . . I still love you!" I yelled, tears streaming down my face.

"You never loved me, Jessica. You loved the idea of being married to a doctor, and since you knew you were pregnant, you wanted a husband and money. All I ever was to you was money."

"That's not true! You're going to pay for that, you're going to pay for saying that you bastard!" I screamed.

He turned and started to walk away, down the hall. I wasn't finished with him yet and I virtually ran after him and grabbed his arm, spinning him slightly toward me, though I think he turned so that I didn't hurt myself in the attempt. I was, after all, quite pregnant.

"Stop this before you get hurt!" he said, pulling away from me. I let my hand slide down his arm, and he was moving away from me again. He couldn't . . . I just couldn't let him go. I dug my nails into his skin as I felt the sleeve slip by, effectively grabbing his wrist.

"It doesn't have to be like this! I need you, Edward!" I said, slightly more quietly than the yelling I had been doing, "I was there for you when you needed someone."

"Yes, you were there, Jessica, but there for me or yourself?" he said as he used his other hand to peel my hand from his wrist, "Stop this or you're going to get yourself hurt!"

He walked away. I just stood there blubbering like an idiot as I watched him get onto the elevator. There was a crowd now, watching. They all stood, not moving . . . waiting to see what I would do next I suppose. I turned and walked back to the nurses station, sat down at the desk where I had laid a chart before, and opened it to continue making my notes. After a few minutes, I heard the quiet footsteps of the other nurses going about their business and the onlookers dissipating, back to whatever it was they had been doing before they came out to witness our little display. I wondered absently, how long it would take Carlisle Cullen to hear about this, or perhaps that was exactly where Edward had gone when he left my floor.

Fuck it. There was nothing I could do to change it anyway. I needed this to resolve itself, I needed him to just settle out of court so that I could take the money and have something to get stared in a different town, far away from here. I couldn't stand it here, I didn't want my baby here . . . that couldn't happen!

The rest of the day, amounting to only a couple of hours, passed quickly as everyone left me the hell alone. I gave report, clocked out and left, not even bothering to wash my hands after work. I was usually fastidious about washing up and bringing germs home and such, but today I just didn't care. It was less than a mile to my apartment, nothing much on the street of interest as I drove, using the car I borrowed from my neighbor. She was on vacation for two weeks and for two weeks, I actually didn't have to walk to and from work . . . and anywhere else I wanted to go.

Unexpectedly, I felt the thud thud thud that I knew could only mean one thing. I had a flat. A flat tire. It figured, I thought as I pulled off onto the concrete left where they had demolished an old store. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I brushed them away, trying to see through them to open the trunk of the car, hoping to God that thee was a jack and a spare tire. It was one of the few hot days that we would have in Forks during the summer, and sweat poured down my face as I tried to get the bolts holding the tires on to loosen. The tire iron kept slipping and I scraped the side of my hand on the wheel, some stupid rough spot after the hub cap came off had dug onto me and now blood was making it even harder to get a grip on the wrench to loosen the tire. I found the jack, and I was trying to figure out just where the hell to put it when a car stopped. Shit. I didn't really want to be seen like this, sweaty and completely undone I reached into the trunk and grabbed an old shirt to wipe my hand on so that at lest I wasn't dripping blood on whoever had taken pity on me and stopped. Tossing the shirt back into the trunk, I walked around the car only to come face to face with my own personal hell

~oooOooo~

EPOV

I had tried to take Bella's advice, I really had. She had said she felt sorry for Jessica, and she had encouraged me to be civil to her when we spotted her in the fucking lunchroom. I had been and I continued to try to be, well at least not to be an asshole. During the time we had been together, I had found that Bella was almost always right when it came to things to do with me, and this was no different. I just couldn't let her fucking touch me. Maybe she hadn't meant anything by it, but it was just too much. She reminded me that we were friends, and that was a stretch, but telling me she loved me . . . yelling it down the hallway at the hospital . . . no fucking way. Yea, I turned on her. I told her that all she ever saw me as was a fucking bank account and that I wanted no part of her.

She needed to stop grabbing me or she was going to hurt herself. If I had just jerked my arm away like I wanted to I was pretty sure she would have just toppled over, as unsteady on her feet as she was. Regardless of how I felt about her, she was pregnant and I loved babies. I would never do anything to harm her baby,

I tossed my lab coat onto the sofa in Carlisle's office as I continued to rant and rave about how in the world I was supposed to work on the same floor as that woman.

"Settle down, Edward. Obviously someone made a mistake, she isn't even supposed to be on the pediatric floor. I'll go over the schedules from now on to make sure it doesn't happen again, son. We can't have outbursts like that in the hospital," Carlisle reminded me, "At least you were careful with her, weren't you?" His eyes ran to my wrist. I hadn't noticed it before, but her fingernails had made several deep scratches in the skin and blood was drying on my arm.

"Fuck. Of course I was careful with her, Dad! She grabbed me and I could have pulled her over if I had tried to get away from her too fast. Apparently I wasn't fast enough," I said rising to pace back and forth and examine my wrist.

"How is Bella taking all of this?" Carlisle asked.

I plopped down in the chair, exasperated. "Bella is fucking amazing. She had lunch with me and Jessica showed up and all Bella could think of was to tell me to be nice to Jessica. Civil to her I think she said," I chuckled to myself, "She seems to understand perfectly that another woman wants me . . . apparently she thinks I'm a catch."

"You used to think you were all that where the ladies were concerned, remember?" Carlisle goaded me, "From what I hear, you were quite the player before you left for college at NYU, Edward."

"Yea. well that was fucking forever ago, Dad. The only opinion of me that I care about now is Bella's and so far, she loves me," I smirked.

"You're very lucky to have Bella, son. She really seems to be an amazing young woman and perfect for you. At any rate, no more outbursts. I'll see to the schedules so that she isn't on your floor, Edward. Your shift is over, are you through with your rounds?"

"Yea, all done. Everyone is doing surprisingly well right now, and I don't need to check on the again till in the morning. Usually Mondays are longer, but apparently the weekend went well for all my patients," I replied.

"Good, get out of here then. Go home, son."

I left the office and signed out, heading to my car. Bella had reminded me at lunch that she had agreed to meet her publisher at one of the little restaurants in town and it would be awhile before she got home. I left the parking lot, immersed in my own thoughts and headed off to do a couple of errands. I passed a car on the side of the road and thought I saw a woman trying to change a tire. I couldn't be sure, it was the tire on the opposite side of the car and I didn't have a clear view. Fuck. It was a hot day and very few people would be passing by at this time of day to offer her help. Damn it, I couldn't just leave her there to change the fucking tire, if that's what it was. I whipped my car around and pulled it beside the disabled car. Jessica. What the hell? She didn't even own a damned car so I had never given it a thought that it could be her, though I would have been hard pressed to fucking drive by and leave her stranded, regardless.

She was standing at the fucking trunk with the crow bar in her hand, crying. Taking the damn tool from her, I bent down, easily loosening all but one of the lug nuts then positioning the jack that she had out under the car. She just stood looking at me, apparently she had cut her hand and she was dripping blood. I hadn't realized she was injured. When I saw the blood, I tossed the tire iron in her front seat and led her over to my car, sitting her in the passenger seat and reaching in the back for my bag. Without a word between us, I cleaned her hand, laying the pieces of gauze in the floor board, and bandaged it.

"Stay there till I finish," I told her. I had left my car on and the air conditioning would do her good. She appeared to have gotten way too hot trying to deal with the damned tire. I grabbed my tire iron out of the trunk as it would allow me more leverage to get the rusted lug off on her car and it worked like a charm, loosening the fucking rusted bolt with relative ease. I jacked up her car, changed her tire and put the fucking flat tire back where the spare went in the truck along with the jack.

"You're all set, Jessica, I told her as I returned my tool to my truck. You need to get someone to put a new tire on the rim so you'll have a spare, though," I told her as I stood outside the passenger door of my car, holding it open for her to get out.

"Thank you, Edward," she said, still crying. She walked to her car and got in. I expected her to try to engage me in some type of fucking discussion because she looked like it took everything she had to lift her foot and walk away. After she pulled out, I followed her to make sure she got home. She was crying and shit and I really wasn't sure she should be driving at all but I sure as hell wasn't getting into a car with her. I circled into her apartment complex. looking for the car to make sure she had gotten out and gone inside. A small child I recognized ran out in front of me chasing a ball and I screeched the brakes to stop well before I was near him.

"Thank you, Dr. Cullen! Sorry about that," the child's mother called out to me. I knew she had been a patient, but her name escaped me, "No problem. Stay safe," I told her as I slowly drove to Jessica's building, saw that she was not in it the car that was parked outside, and left. I had several errands to do, but I wasn't in the mood to do any of them now that I was sweaty and dirty.

Though I knew Bella wasn't going to be home for awhile, I went to my house, parked my car and changed into some board shorts to walk Kismet down the beach.

There was absolutely no one there, unbelievable on a day as sunny as this, and I laid down in the sand and basked in the warmth and the sunlight. It was late in the day, but it was still glorious on the beach listening to the waves and letting the stress from the day melt away.

~oooOooo~

Tyler POV

"Mikey! Wsssup, man?" I drunkenly asked as noticed Mike sitting down next to me at the bar.

"Starting early today, Tyler?"

"He's been here all day," Tim, the barkeep told him, talking about me.

"All day?" Mike asked, surprised.

"Yep."

"Fucking right I've been here all day," I almost shouted, "I got no where else to be."

"What the fuck happened?" Mike asked.

"Got a pink slip yesterday . . . laid off they called it . . . fuckers," I said, swigging the last of the bottle and slamming it down on the bar. "I need another beer," I said slapping another twenty on the bar. It was Saturday afternoon and I had no where else to fucking be. I had cash from being paid, but the fucking landlord locked my apartment. I had to break in to get my things and I sure as shit wasn't going back there. Fuck it.

"You've been laid off before, back near Easter if I remember right," Mike said.

"Yea, but this time I;m behind on everything from last time. I can't fucking wait it out again," I explained.

"Are you driving, Tyler?" Tim asked.

"Fucking a I'm driving. I'm driving my ass out to my car. That's where I live now . . . my car," I told them, "It's outside in the parking lot and nobody better fuck with me for being there tonight."

"What the hell, Tyler. Tomorrow is Sunday, you gonna still be here then?" Tim asked me.

"Yep. You got a shower here, barkeep?", I said, looking at Mike, "Maybe I'll just live here."

"Seriously, Tyler, what are you going to do?" Mike asked me, looking fucking sorry for me.

"I told you before what I was gonna do if this happened . . . I'm gonna find that little bitch of a whore of mine and make her fuckin' support me," I told them, laughing, "Even if she was a bad lay, there's no such thing as a bad blow job now is there?"

"You're serious?"

"Yep."

"You think you can find her that easily?"

"Ha! That little whore knows no better than to go back home. Forks. She'll have her ass working at the hospital in Forks is where she'll be," I told them.

"Yea. but she left your ass, Tyler. What makes you think she'll have you back?" Tim asked, drying the bar where I spilled my beer.

"Pffft. Bitch will do what I say if she knows what's good for her," I slurred. I knew that my words were getting fuzzy because the faces of Tim and Mike were getting kind of blurry, too. I stood shakily and turned, stumbling to the door and fumbling with the handle once I got to it. I lit a cigarette in the warm night air and blew smoke to the sky. Yep, the bitch would take care of me for a while, i would go get my cash cow and make her see things my way for a change. I stumbled to my car and made it to the backseat before things went dark and started spinning, the door never getting closed. I had all next week to worry about it, this was the weekend an I had no intention of sobering up till at least Monday.

~oooOooo~