*Disclaimer - Sadly, I own nothing of Twilight with the exception of merchandise, bought and paid for. I do, however, own my love for borrowing the characters and playing with them however I choose to. I thank Stephenie Meyer for creating the TwiWorld and for allowing us to have our fun with it. She owns Twilight, the insanity it created in my mind is my own.

Hugs to Shug, my beta-reader. :)

Whatever Works

Positive Forward

"Edward… I'm so sorry that Evan saw you. I never should have left him while Esme was watching! I'm sorry –"

"Shhh." His arms were around me in his darkened bedroom. His warm breath was next to my ear as he closed the door and pressed me against it. "No more of that. I missed you." His lips were nipping at my earlobe.

I mumbled something that was meant to tell him I had missed him too. He let out a low chuckle and moved over to my mouth. The kiss was hot. Literally. His face was cold from walking however long he had, but his mouth seemed to be on fire. It moved over mine expertly. The kiss was tender and demanding all at once, seeming to seek something he wanted desperately.

"Did you mean it? What you said before?" he asked, stalling his kiss abruptly. He ran his lips across my cheekbone. His hands gripped my hips, and I could feel his chest rising and falling against mine as he panted in and out rapidly.

I knew what he was referring to. I'd thought he hadn't noticed that I'd never professed my love for him. He hadn't said it in so many words either since that day at the hotel. It now struck me that he had taken note. And he was waiting for me. Fresh tears stung my eyes. "Edward? Is this you being patient with me?"

"It's high time, don't you think? I've been asking you for patience from the start. It was my turn. No pressure."

"Oh god!" I cried out, both shocked and giddy. "God… I love you. I do. I love you, Edward."

"Are you sure?" His crooked grin greeted me as he pulled back. "I want you to be sure. It doesn't sound like you're absolutely convinced."

I slapped his chest with both hands repeatedly as I frowned and tittered and sniffled all at the same time. The sound of his sexy laugh stilled my hands. I clenched in fistfuls of his shirt and dropped my lips to kiss his chest that I had just pounded on. "I love you, Edward Cullen. Of this, I am certain."

"Good." His laughter stopped. He stared down at my hands, stroking my wrists before he eased my grip on him. He bent as though he was going to pick me up, then suddenly changed his mind. He held up a finger. "Wait." A sexy smirk. "I know. Here I am again, asking you to wait. Just… trust me."

I huffed as he tugged me aside and opened his bedroom door, indicating he wanted me to wait outside. "You'd better be worth the wait, Cullen. There's a million things I want to talk to you about."

"Oh, I'm worth the wait, baby." He winked suggestively and then laughed at himself. "It'll just be a few seconds, okay? Thank you."

I ran my hands over my flushed face as I waited for him, drying my tears and attempting to cool my skin. It felt amazing to admit that that I was in love. For the first time, I was truly in love. Also amazing that it was this man who'd captured my heart. It was even more amazing that for the first time, I didn't feel stupid for falling in love with him.

"Okay. Sorry about that. I'm ready for you now." Edward opened the door and addressed me softly.

I was tempted to be flippant and make him wait, but one look into his eyes told me it wasn't time to be playful. I reached for his hand and let him lead me back into his bedroom. He had dimmed the lights, lit candles. Music was playing softly in the background, but all I could make out was the sound of my heart thumping as he lowered his lips to mine. His fingers worked their way up from my waist, under my shirt, and we parted just long enough for him to pull it up and over my head. His breath was hot against my cheek as he lowered his head to gaze at me in the candlelight. One hand moved to trace a line across my collarbone and then down between my breasts.

"So beautiful," he murmured. "You're… so beautiful."

"I…" My voice caught in my throat, overwhelmed with his tenderness. "I thought we were going to talk."

He smiled, pressing his forehead against mine. "There's time for that later. Unless… you don't want –"

Grabbing onto the back of his neck, I held him tightly as I kissed him. "I want. I missed you. So much."

We were pawing at each other, undoing buttons and zippers, trying to get rid of any and all barriers between us as we made our way to the bed. He was more adept at rapid stripping than I was. He had me down to my panties by the time I got there. I'd managed to remove his button down shirt, but he still wore a t-shirt, and his jeans had dropped to his knees. He kicked them aside as I climbed onto the bed, kneeling in front of him, anxious to resume our kissing.

"Wait…" He held a finger between our lips, smiling coyly. Oh, he knew he was driving me wild with yet another stoppage. "Lay back for me?"

I dropped to the mattress, as requested, sprawling across the bed and wrapping my legs around his waist to pull him forward.

"I like your idea." Laughing, he stroked my legs. "I really like your idea, but I had another." His head tilted towards the head of the bed. I felt abashed, realizing that he was in a romantic mood rather than a wham-bam mood.

Peeling my legs off him, I eased my way up to the top of the bed, stalling when I discovered a box on the pillow next to me. A long, narrow box. A jewellery box.

The reflection of the candle beside the bed shimmered in his eyes as he grinned. "Go on. Open it."

He sat on the edge of the bed as I reached for it with trembling hands. I spent several moments trying to open the hinged box from the wrong side before he took it from me with a chuckle.

"You should practice with this and get used to them. I plan on spoiling you frequently."

"Edward, I don't need gifts –"

"Shh-shh-shhhh. I want you to have this." He flipped the box open to reveal a delicate necklace with two linked rings hanging from it. "It's an Infinity necklace," he announced in a soft voice. "It means I'm yours. Infinitely. I hope you'll wear it."

Tears blurred my vision as I reached to remove it from the box. "It's… I'll never take it off!"

Pulling my shaking hands away, he kissed them before removing the necklace from the box. I held my hair up while he linked it on me. "It was going to be a Christmas gift. I couldn't wait."

"For one who demands patience, you really aren't one to wait yourself." I could tease him now. If I didn't tease him, I would end up doing a very unattractive blubbering cry that would kill the moment.

His low, sexy laugh rang out as he slipped his fingers into my waistband. One sweet kiss, and one deft movement, and he had removed my last piece of clothing before straddling me. He bent over me, licking his way up the center of my torso as his fingers explored below. "Do you want me to wait?"

I shook my head and grunted as I felt his warmth delving inside me. "Fuck, no!" My own hands grabbed at his waistband and tugged on his boxers. "We need these gone. Now."

Wish granted, he straddled me once more to slowly remove his t-shirt. I was about to tease him further, requesting a full striptease in the near future, when a shimmer caught my eye. As he dropped down to his elbows to kiss me, two tiny rings on a chain around his neck tinkled against mine. "I hope you don't mind, but you're mine – infinitely – as well."

"Jesus, Edward!" I sobbed as I clenched onto him.

Lovingly, he swiped away my tears of joy. His legs parted mine as he kissed away the remaining dampness on my cheeks. And as he entered me, he held my face in his hands. "I love you, Bella Swan. Infinitely."

It was that moment that the music overtook my pounding heart. "Edward… is that… 'Endless Love'?"

He collapsed in a fit of giddiness on top of me. "I swear – I didn't plan that!"

We made love, alternating laughing together and praising each other's body and skills in language that was not appropriate for any other situation. It was fuckhot one minute and unbelievably loving the next. All the best that Edward Cullen had to offer. Infinitely.

~ 0 ~

"What are you thinking about?" Edward's soft voice cut into the silence. I was nestled under his chin, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he drew lazy circles on my back.

"I'm sorry that I let you down. Again. Is Evan okay? Did you talk about what he saw?"

"First of all, I've continuously let you down. I should have been more open with you from the onset –"

"You were protecting Evan's privacy! I get it! You didn't know if I could be trusted –"

"Evan's fine. No damage done."

We had been talking over one another, but those words put me at ease. Edward's warm embrace helped a lot, too.

"He's a bright little boy," I commented. "He's handling everything so well."

Edward hummed. I peeked up to see his proud smile. "I told him my job is to pretend to be other people on TV. Do funny things. Act crazy. He already thinks I talk funny, so it wasn't a stretch for him to see me act stupid. He thinks what he saw was part of my job, not his Daddy being a drunken idiot. I haven't seen it. How bad was it, really?"

"You looked like you were having fun…"

"Drunk off my ass?"

"Uh, yeah. I don't think Evan would see it that way though. He's never seen you drunk."

"I intend to keep it that way. Thanks for leaving it to me to explain it to him. I mean that. It helped that you didn't make a big deal out of it. He never even mentioned it to Maggie. I probably could have gotten away with not saying anything about it to him, but I'd rather not make the same mistakes with him that I've made with you."

It struck me that he hadn't been the only one to make mistakes. I had misjudged him on many occasions, and I was guilty of not opening up to him as well. I wanted that to change. "I was so afraid earlier," I confessed. "Even though you said we were all right, part of me thought you would change your mind and not even come back. Your mom –"

He huffed out a sigh. "Yeah. That's something I'm not really dealing with right now. I don't want to make it worse, so I'll sit on it for the time being until I'm calmer. There's something more important right now anyway, and it can't wait. I wanted to talk to you about it first… and then Mum decided to purge, and I had to get Evan straightened away. I'm sorry I was gone so long. I had to talk to Maggie – this affects her too. Sorry. I really wanted to hash this out with you before her. It just didn't work out that way."

"Something's happened." I sat up, turning to look down at him. "What is it?"

"Mike is no longer representing me."

My eyes widened. There's no way Mike would willingly give up all the perks available to him with Edward. "What the hell? What happened?"

"Jessica." The word was spewed out with bitterness as he sat up and rubbed his palms up and down his face. "Um, do you want to take a walk? It feels weird talking about this in bed."

I climbed out first, quickly redressing. "We'll go get some tea?" I asked with a soft smirk. It was met with a gentle kiss.

"You fit with us so well. Thank you."

~ 0 ~

"I'm just going to get right to it, since you've already been brought up to date on my mother's end of this fiasco." Edward spoke up as soon as we left the house. "She told me you know everything. I'll deal with that later. I'm not upset with you – I need you to know that."

I simply nodded. Had Esme told him I'd known about everything but Jessica for weeks? Would that make a difference to him?

"It would seem that my ex-employee was quite busy while she was at my house. I thought it was a more recent thing, since leaving, but according to Mum, she was at it even while she worked for me. That will actually help. I've left messages for Varner and Jenks, detailing the theft and resale of personal items –"

"Jenks?" That sounded familiar. I knew who Varner was already.

"My other lawyer. Varner handles my business stuff, but I use Dad's lawyer for family issues."

"Oh, makes sense. It's actually really smart to keep them separated. Better protection for Evan."

"Exactly. But now Jessica has combined the two, so she'll have my legal team to go against. The photos she took and sold, while under contract, is in direct violation, so we'll get her for that. There's a bigger problem, however. I received a phone call last night from Angela. Jessica's writing a book. She wanted legal advice on how to release it under a pseudonym to avoid revealing herself as her source."

I let out a snort. "She went to your lawyer's assistant for legal advice on screwing you over?"

"Well, she's not a bright girl," he retorted with a chuckle. "But Angela is. She put her off. Played like she was going to gather information for her and whatnot… and then Angela called me. She didn't go to Varner or Mike. She called me directly. Smart girl."

Smiling, I nodded my agreement. "She's brilliant. And undervalued."

"Until now. She pumped Jessica for so many details, I don't think we'll have any surprises. And Jessica just gave it all up to her, like they were long lost best friends. Fucking moron."

I snickered. "Her book… it's a tell-all?"

"Mm-hmm. Including photos. I'd imagine there would be more photos than intelligible words." We both snickered. "I'd actually like to see what kind of crap she could try to sell. It would be entertaining if it didn't hurt the people I love."

He paused as we approached the café. "I really do want a tea… you?"

Recalling the last time we'd been in together and the staff's reaction to Edward, I wasn't sure it was a good idea. "You wait here, I'll go in. Last thing you need is a brigade of teens on alert."

I got an incredibly sweet smile when I handed him his tea. We continued our walk as we sipped. "So what does Mike have to do with this? He wasn't in on her scheme, was he?"

"I'd certainly like to think not. I hope that's the case. No… I don't think he's involved. He just didn't help matters. Not only did he bring her into my home, but conducting the affair with her gave her ample opportunity to fuck me over. And he didn't handle her dismissal properly. He didn't get Varner involved to void her old contract and have a new one signed about disclosure or whatever. I don't know. Angela told me that if Jessica hooked up with any legal advisor with half a brain, she could get around it and publish her book… stolen photos included."

I quirked an eyebrow at him.

"She hacked my computer. She had to have. She showed Angela pictures of Evan. I didn't even keep pictures of him on my phone in case someone came across them. They were only on my computer."

"Do you think Mike helped her with that?" I was grasping at straws. I honestly didn't believe Jessica was smart enough to pull anything like this off on her own.

Edward shrugged. "It's not like I want to drag him through the mud with her. I just need him gone. I can't work with him anymore. There is zero trust."

"I understand," I replied soothingly. "So what's going to happen? If Jessica can get around everything with the improper dismissal, does that mean the book will come out?"

"Angela asked if I'd mind if she brought Eric into it. He's Varner's underling –"

"Yeah, I remember him."

"Bright guy. Doesn't creep me out nearly as much as Varner." Edward laughed. "So, they worked on a plan and proposed their idea this morning. From all the dirt Angela got directly from the stupid cow, Jessica has two big exposés that she's counting on selling this book for her. The rest of the crap is pretty common knowledge. I wouldn't care if people read about it, really. If it wasn't for you, Evan, and Mum, I wouldn't give a rat's ass, period. Let her publish! It'd be a joke."

"You don't want the media crowding around Evan, I know."

"No. I don't."

I gave his arm a light squeeze. His voice was wavering, showing signs of great distress over that possibility. "What's their plan?"

"They figure if I come out with one of her revelations myself, it'll force her to act rashly in order to cash in. She'll be sloppy. We can get the publication halted and possibly lay charges. At the very least, lock her into a silencing and permanent buy-out."

I shook my head. "You can't reveal Evan. What else?"

He lowered his gaze, timidly. "Not what. Who." Turning to me, he grimaced. "It's you or Evan."

I didn't hesitate. "There's no option. We have to do whatever we have to in order to protect Evan."

"Bella…" Edward said with sad frustration. "You make it sound so easy. I don't want to do that to you! For the first time in my life, I'm completely in love, and I don't want to share that! It's selfish but true. And I don't want to make your life any more difficult than it is. It's not fair to you. I feel like I'm throwing you to the wolves!"

"I'm throwing myself, Edward. I told you that I'm here. I'm committed to you and to Evan! I'm not about to let anything happen to him either! We'll do this, Edward… you and me. For Evan."

He turned his head away, but even in the dim streetlight, I could see his face contorted in pain and frustration. He turned back to me with watery eyes. "If there was any other way… I wouldn't even ask you."

"I'm making the decision," I said sternly. "You didn't ask. I'm doing this."

"How did I get so lucky?"

I snickered. "You've always been one lucky asshole."

His phone interrupted a true laugh from him. He answered without hesitation. I could only imagine it was Emmett on the other end by the way Edward finished the call just as we neared our house.

"Yeah? God. That would be amazing. I… I really need you guys right now. I'll reimburse you when you –" He cut himself off to listen and then chuckled at the response. "Deal. See you tomorrow."

My Emmett-Bear is coming! I knew somehow, he'd make it all right. I let us in as Edward pocketed his phone. "Emmett's coming?" I asked with a huge grin.

"Yeah. Him and Rose. They'll be here any time now. That was Jasper."

My jaw gaped. "Jasper?"

Edward nodded with a teary, abashed grin.

"Did I hear you spoke with Jasper?" Esme asked timidly from the door of the kitchen. "Edward… did you call –"

"Yes, Mum. I called Alice. Jazz just called me back. They're coming."

Esme collapsed in tears against the doorframe. Edward and I both rushed to her side to catch her before she fell to the floor. Scooping his mother up in his arms, he carried her like a worn-out child to her bed. I darted ahead to prepare it for her. As we sat on either side of her, I stared across at Edward. He looked so torn up.

"I knew you'd be the one to reach out, Edward. I always knew."

His eyes met his mother's, and the tiniest of grins appeared. "It'll be all right, Mum. You'll see."

~ 0 ~

Neither of us slept all night. I waited for Rosalie and Emmett while Edward was with Esme. He had promised to stay with her until she was asleep. She was right; he did have Carlisle's capacity for forgiveness. I knew he had to be gutted by all that she had confessed to. It was a relief to have his sister and best friend arrive. Emmett greeted me with his usual bear hug, and Rosalie was equally enthused. I took them upstairs to get settled in my old room. I figured they'd be staying the longest in this house, and I had more amenities for them in there.

Edward was still with his mother when we came down. Rosalie and Emmett went in and sent him out for a break. He cracked open a beer, downed half, and then hugged me fiercely. I merely held him in return. I didn't have words to offer that would remove his inner turmoil. When Rose appeared, I let my arms slip from him and she moved in.

"We'll do this. Together. Okay?"

Edward nodded, clinging to her.

"You called Alice… oh, honey. I'm so proud of you. You know that, right? You're my idol?"

Edward snuffled. "Shut up!"

"Not teasing this time. This is good, Edward. Positive forward and all that shit. And I'm here for you. You think I'll let that little runt run you down? Not a chance!"

I chuckled along with them. If anyone could silence Alice, I imagined it would be Rosalie.

"See why she's my favorite?" Edward winked at me.

"Maybe not for long." Rose grimaced. "I was sent out here to get you. Your mom wants to talk to us both."

"Is she not sleeping yet? Christ. It's easier getting Evan down for the night!"

"Tea or beer for when you're done?" I asked him.

His eyes widened comically. "Oh, no. No, no, no… You're coming with us!" Grabbing me playfully around the waist, he nuzzled at my neck. "You want to be part of the family, you've got to take all of it as it comes."

Rosalie took a swig of his beer before wrapping her arms around both of us. "Let's do this, kids!"

Esme was sitting up in her bed with Emmett right beside her, legs stretched out and his usual grin on his face. Edward put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in place when he started to get up. Pulling a chair up, he sat with Emmett in between him and Esme. I sat on the foot of the bed while Rose took the other side.

Esme dabbed at her eyes as a smile broke out. "Nearly all of my kids are here!"

Emmett put an arm around her as Rosalie passed her another tissue.

"I want to fix this," she announced. "I made this whole damned mess –"

"And we're all here to work on it," Rosalie finished for her. "You don't have to do this on your own. Neither does Edward." She took Esme's hand and reached for mine. I linked with her and reached for Edward. Edward, Emmett, and Esme joining up, we formed a full circle. "A circle of strength. Nothing can break through."

"You've grown to be a beautiful, wonderful woman, Rosalie. I'm so grateful to have you in my life." Esme looked at her with adoration. "I don't deserve my good fortune, but I am grateful. I need to correct an error… and I need your help. Can you help me to get in touch with your father? Help me explain to him how I lied?"

"Mum, that's not necessary," Edward interjected.

"It is. My lie prevented your father from ever knowing you. He may not have dismissed you if he believed you really were his child."

I glanced at Rosalie to see a sad, far away expression. I couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"He hasn't been part of his daughter's life, Mother. What would make you think he'd want me around?"

Rosalie smirked as she sniffled. These half-siblings knew each other so well.

"Regardless, I'm not interested. My father… died last February. And I miss him."

The circle tightened in, on, and around Esme's bed. These were the first tears I'd seen Edward shed for Carlisle. And they were flowing freely. I cried along for him. Peering around the circle, I saw three others crying out of love and support for him as well. The healing was beginning.

A/N ~ Nearing the end, folks. This wraps up in the next two chapters - epilogue to follow. See you next time! Thanks for reading. XX ~ SR