Full Summary: Bella Swan is still reeling from the death of her beloved mother, Renee. After graduating from her Phoenix high school, she moves to live with her father in the small town of Forks. Putting college on hold while she sorts her life out, she gets a job waiting tables at the local diner where she meets a handsome cook named Edward Cullen.

A/N: This is my first official fanfic. I've been lurking the site for several months, greedily gobbling up every good Twilight fanfic that I could find. Eventually, I came to realize that I needed to add to the coffers and provide my own. As per the norm, Twilight and all characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. They just happen to hang out in my imagination, drinking tea with my muse and telling me to write, dang it!

The title, Fiercest Calm, is from a lyric in the Tori Amos song, "Concertina." (It's on the 1999 album "To Venus and Back," if you're so inclined to seek it out.) Tori is my first obsession in life, next to Twilight and Diet Coke. Don't be surprised if many of the chapter names are somehow related to the chapter itself, but are also a fragment of a Tori lyric.

The Alaska Airlines boarding area at the Phoenix airport is surrounded on all sides by windows. Nearly floor to ceiling, those huge glass windows help the searing heat of the desert sun to radiate into the terminal, nearly melting anyone that makes the mistake to sit too near them. Sadly, they do not provide much a view of the landscape, of the city. There is the baked desert, the red rocks, the palms…but there is little that truly characterizes the city I've lived in for the vast majority of my life.

I feel like I am straining into those windows as I wait in line to board my flight. I am nearly on my tiptoes, hoping to get one more good view of Phoenix from the ground level. Before I am over the top of her, looking down and over what I am running away from. I try to convince myself that I'm not running.

I'm not doing a good job of it.

The line begins to move forward faster. I hand my boarding pass to the smiling attendant who scans it, hands it back to me and welcomes me aboard.

I get my last good view of Phoenix from the ground, the sky reddening in sunset against the stark contrast of the blue July sky. Then I slip into the gateway and make my way towards whatever it is that lies ahead for me in Phoenix.

* * * * *

Three months ago, I was at my mother's bedside at the Phoenix City Hospital. The nurses weaved in and out between Phil and me. It felt like they were ghosts, impermeable and transparent. They spoke, but I did not hear them. I did not watch the actions they took with regards to my mother's medical care. What was the point?

There was nothing more that could be done for her.

Phil and I were here merely to watch her light fade. Whether this was for her or for us, I did not know. I only knew what tugged at me inside – that I must stay here by her side until she passed into whatever world waited for her on the other side of this life. I had no use for the spiritualisms that Phil was trying to feed me, in those rare moments when we spoke to each. It was usually over a quick meal together in the hospital cafeteria, usually when one of Mom's friends was visiting.

Neither of us could bear to leave her alone. We couldn't have lived with ourselves if her light passed and she was by herself. I think, in my opinion, that would've been even worse than her actual, inevitable death.

Months of chemotherapy, session after session of radiation therapy – neither had done anything to reduce the dark monster that was growing at an exponential rate in her right breast. Within weeks of her diagnosis, she was clearly weakened by the seed that had taken root. I accompanied her to every appointment, held her hand through every chemotherapy treatment. In the end, though, it was all for naught. I still wonder why she did any of it at all, why she even put up the fight that she did. Was it worth it when this was what she was reduced to, a skeletal mass of bones and skin on a hospital bed?

Three months ago, on April 16, I lay on the bed next to my mother, holding her tiny hand, stroking what was left of her hair. Her eyes were closed; she was sleeping, if you could call it that. Her sleep was almost always restless, punctuated with her low, nearly silent moans. I was lying there, comforting her.

Comforting myself.

She hitched up a breath, stopped it abruptly and exhaled quickly. One more breath in and I listened for the release.

It never came.

I was lying by her side when she died.

* * * * *

It's less than three hours from Phoenix to Seattle, but it can feel like forever. I made the mistake of not grabbing a magazine at the airport, assuming that my iPod would hold all the entertainment that I required. I was wrong. I looked out the window at the mountainous, nameless landscape, and then looked down at my watch. We'd been in the air for only a little over an hour, the first round of pretzels and beverages already doled out. There was nothing left to do but sit and think, to close my eyes and wish desperately for a sleep that refused to come.

I was supposed to start at Arizona State University in the fall, my major still undecided. My mother would likely rise up from her pearlescent coffin and have my ass if she knew that I had cancelled my enrollment shortly after her death. Phil, despite his own very deep-seated grief, very nearly did the same.

"Why, Bella? Why?" he demanded over a dinner of Top Ramen and French bread. After Mom's death, we stopped caring about the nutritional value of our meals.

"You know how much this meant to her," he said. "And it meant so much to you. All the time you've spent on campus, all the work you did with your SAT and ACT scores. All that damned community service work!"

I fiddled with my fork, using it to pick out a bit of seasoning packet that had not been completely absorbed by the water. "I know, Phil," I replied meekly. "I just…I'm just not ready."

Phil slammed his fork down on the table and stood, angrily stomping towards the kitchen. He picked up the large packet of paperwork from ASU from the counter and brought it back to the table we were seated at. He dropped it unceremoniously in front of my soup bowl. The sound echoed in the empty house.

"So much work," he said, nearly shouting, "so much heart and soul poured into those essays. Your mother took such pride in your heading to college – the first in her family! She bragged about your acceptance to anyone that would listen. People laughed at her – it was just ASU, after all. But she was so damned proud, Bella!"

Tears were betraying me, creeping out from under my hot eyelids. "Phil, I know. That's why I can't do it. I can't do it without Mom. I can't be here without Mom."

Phil became very still. He sat back in his chair at the table. "What does that mean?"

"It means," I said, staring into my uneaten ramen noodles, "that I'm moving to Forks after graduation."

There was silence.

Then Phil began to cry.

* * * * *

I was running, of course, I thought to myself as I checked my watch again. The landscape underneath me had begun to change. It was dark, but there were more lights now – indicating that we were getting closer to the cities surrounding SeaTac International Airport. My watch confirmed the truth – we were thirty minutes from landing. I turned the lovely watch around on my wrist. It had been my mother's and Phil had made sure that I got it from her jewelry case before I left.

Why else would I turn my back on the college education that I'd worked so hard for? Why else would I try to forget the image of Phil, crying into his bowl of ramen that night at the dinner table? I was leaving him behind, leaving him alone in that empty house under the unforgiving desert sky. I was the last thing left of the life the three of us had begun to live together and here I was, walking away.

Or rather, in my case, flying away. I fingered the watch again. It hadn't been much, not an expensive piece of jewelry, but something functional that my mother wore every day. It was worn in the places that it had rubbed against her in the years that she'd had it. That was why I had chosen this specifically, why I had delicately asked Phil to find it in the room that they had shared together. It was hers, through and through. I sometimes thought that I could still feel her warm skin beneath it.

The plane began to make its final descent into SeaTac. I straightened my seat and turned off the overhead light, leaning my head next to the open window beside me. I could see the lights of this new city surrounding the airport – the lights of cars, the lights of office buildings, the lights of pawn shops and taverns and hotels and fancy restaurants. So similar to Phoenix, yet so different.

For one, it was raining when we landed.

* * * * *

My dad, Charlie, met me at baggage claim. Our hug was awkward – it had been years since we'd last been in each other's presence and while I had spoken with him many times and in depth (especially during the roughest times of my mother's illness, as well as since her passing), it still felt strange to be standing next to him. I pointed to my bags, tumbling onto the carousel. As he made his way through the crowd to reach for them, I pulled out my cell phone and made a quick call to Phil.

"Hey darlin'," he said immediately upon answering. "I take it you got in all right?"

"I did Phil; I just wanted to let you know."

"Good, thank you. I sure do miss you here already." I could hear the soft sadness in his voice.

"I know, Phil. I'll be in touch all the time."

There was a deep sigh. "I know, darlin', I know."

Charlie came up to me then, my bags in hand. "You ready?"

"Yeah, Dad, I am." I turned my attention back to the phone. "Hey, Phil? I gotta go, all right? I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

After a moment of silence, Phil responded. "All right, but you don't have to. You get yourself settled in at your dad's. Then you call me and tell me all about Forks. And don't worry about me, I'll be fine here."

"I know you will, Phil. But I'll still call you. All the time. It'll be like I never left."

Silence again. "Yeah," he replied. "You take care, kiddo."

"I will. You too."

I closed the phone and stuffed it back in my purse. Charlie busied himself, looking overly interested in the empty Avis car rental counter. I looked the other way, silent, and wiped a lone tear from my eye.

"Dad?" I asked finally, after the silence between us became deafening. "You ready to go?"

"Sure am," he replied, almost sounding relieved. "Let's get movin'."

* * * * *