Moments That Make Us
Chapter One

To most people, the pain they saw in the eyes of one Jacob Black made it believable that he had lost someone forever to death instead of decisions that were out of his hands.. He'd worn the same haunted and faraway look in his eyes for the last five years, resembling a walking zombie as he carried out his tribal duties. Everything else was forgotten as he kept himself locked away and enclosed in his own pain, wearing his pain as an armour to keep those away who desperately wanted to help him.

The exile he gave himself was the only way he could cope after losing the woman he loved to which the blame lay solely at his feet, at least from his point of view.

She had been willing to wait for him but the order had made it impossible. He'd spurted the bullshit that he was ordered to, never realising it was too late until he'd looked into her eyes. She had left, taking everything good about him with her as she walked away from him and out of his life. To classify their relationship would be an insult to her because she had been his best friend and much more beyond that.

Isabella Swan, fondly know as Bella had left Forks a broken girl, her heart shattered into a thousand piercing shards after having had her love thrown in her face by the second person she had given her love to. Staying in the small town of Forks became an impossibility for the first time since she'd moved there so Bella had taken a flight to her mother's in Jacksonville, becoming determined to erase all memories of the small town in Washington State where her heart had been shattered.

Bella had cut off her father and destroyed every memento she had of her time in Forks, of the Cullens and of the Blacks as she tried desperately to regain control of her life from the supernatural that had infected it and unknowingly destroyed it for the second time in her short life.

She had been slowly coming to terms with everything that had happened to her in the short space of time since she'd moved to Forks, determined to lock all memories away in a corner of her mind and re-attach each shattered piece of her heart together until it was complete and she was ready to move on with her life however that would never happen.

Renee had decided that she had kept a deeply buried secret for long enough and without any consideration for her only child who was trying to recover from a broken heart, had suddenly announced over a dinner one evening that she'd had an affair that had ended shortly after Bella was born.

Bella had been angry to hear, first-hand, how her mother had truly thrown her father's love in his face by having an affair with a man who was a distant friend of his. That anger had turned to rage when she realized that the only reason Renee was telling her was because this man had been the one to conceive her and had known for the last 18 years that Bella was his daughter.

Shock and rage had turned to disgust for her mother when she came to the realisation that Renee had left Charlie for this man, only for this man to leave her in turn and never look back. She had told her so-called mother that karma was a fucking bitch much like she was, backing that comment and her anger up by throwing her plate across the room and storming out.

Without a second thought, she'd thrown everything she'd brought with her in a bag and had bolted from the house, telling Renee to never contact her again as she took off to the one woman she knew would truly help her in a way that her own mother wasn't capable of doing.

Bella Swan arrived on the doorstep of her god-mother, Elizabeth who had been a good friend of her mother's years earlier in the middle of monsoon season in Phoenix, Arizona. Elizabeth had taken one look into her goddaughter's shattered eyes and had offered the one thing Renee was incapable of. Unconditional love.

Bella had left Forks a broken shell of a human being but had slowly healed during her time with her god-mother. Elizabeth had often fielded calls from both of her parents, feigning any knowledge of their daughter's whereabouts but assuring Charlie, at least, that Bella was safe but trying to move on with her life as best she could.

Now imagine Charlie's shock when he gets a call from none other than Bella herself who informs him that she will be moving back to Forks, having brought Old Lady Willow's house that is situated quite far out, barely listed as being part of Forks due to the reasonable trek required to reach it.

Although he doesn't know what exactly has happened between Jacob and Bella, Charlie cannot help but let it slip to Billy and Harry as they're fishing that his daughter is moving back to town, albeit to the outskirts.

Old Lady Willow's house which has been abandoned by her family since her death sits close to the mountain surrounding the Olympic Peninsula, the drive made harder by the natural path that hasn't been changed since the 1900's when the house was first built. Even as Chief of Police, Charlie couldn't possibly describe the house in any kind of detail since he'd never made the trip up to the house at any point in his life.

Both Billy and Harry are disheartened, when questioning Charlie about his daughter's life, to hear that he knew very little about what Bella had been doing or her whereabouts these past five years as Elizabeth only gave him little tidbits of information every couple of months.

''And you have no idea, any at all, of a reason why Bella would move back after all these years?'' Harry questioned, raising an eyebrow at Charlie as he fixed him with a stern look that usually got Charlie to spill his guts about everything he knew or heard.

Charlie shook his head and drained his beer, throwing the can across the room into a bin as he replied'' My daughter has barely spoken to me in the last five years, I've never pushed for more information about her life because she's had a foot out the door for these past couple of years. Do I desperately need to ask those questions when I know the only thing it will be achieving is Bella dropping out of my life completely?''

Harry and Billy both nodded in understanding, neither liking the truth in Charlie's words but understanding his situation as they had both been in a very similar situation with their daughters. Billy knew the pain two-fold, Rachel had kept him at arm's length for the last couple years until Paul had imprinted on her while Rebecca hadn't spoken to him for the last 7 years since she'd moved to Hawaii.

Billy knew that he could have handled the drama with Jake and Bella a lot better than he had done, knowing he was partially responsible for his best friends' daughter's long absence from her father's life due to old-fashioned laws that brought nothing but drama and pain.

Harry was thinking about his own daughter, Leah and the deep rift between them which had only further separated the two of them whom had once been as close as any father and daughter could be. He knew that he hadn't handled the Sam situation anywhere near as delicately as it required, placing tradition and old-fashioned laws above his loyalty and love to his daughter.

He knew it must have been hard to see the man you were going to marry one day suddenly fall in love with somebody else, especially when that somebody is your cousin and best friend. He knew that Leah thought he approved of Emily and Sam's relationship, he didn't but there was little he could say to change her mind as Sam had imprinted on Emily and as a council member, he'd had to give his blessing to them. As Leah's father however, every part of him had screamed out about the injustice to his daughter.

Charlie was thinking back to how his relationship had been with Bella when she was a child. They'd been so close for the first 5 years of her life, even after his divorce from Renee. As the years went by through, Renee had constantly made things difficult for him to maintain any kind of close relationship with Bella through any means or anyone possible.

Bella's tenth birthday was a good example of Renee's attempts to keep him out of his daughter's life. Instead of sending Bella to him for the agreed 3 weeks of the summer, Renee had dumped Bella on the doorstep of her god-mother's for 6 weeks while she ran off with her latest fling, making it impossible to get hold of her.

Charlie knew that he'd never helped things with Renee over the years. When she had announced that she was going to leave him and take Bella, he had called her bluff as Renee could barely take care of herself on a day-to-day basis so how could he take her seriously? It had sunk in that his ex-wife was serious when the divorce papers arrived on his doorstep only a week later and Renee was nowhere to be found.

He'd been furious when he'd learned that Renee had indeed left him, taking Bella and moving cross-country to Riverside, California where her mother resided. Renee's mother, Marie had been furious with Renee for running away from her problems instead of facing them head on but had allowed her daughter to stay with her for the sake of little Bella who she doted on.

Marie had ran interference between him and Renee throughout the entire divorce and up to Bella's sixth birthday until Renee had announced that she was taking her daughter to Phoenix, Arizona where an old friend had a job and house lined up for her. Marie had been furious, telling her daughter exactly what she thought of her before writing her out of her will and cursing her to never darken her doorstep again.

Charlie regretted how he'd handled the entire situation, hating that he'd enabled Renee to the point where she believed all decisions regarding Bella were hers and hers alone to make. He'd always known that Renee was flaky, irresponsible and flighty but it wasn't until Bella got old that he realized there was another side entirely to his ex.

Renee was sneaky, spiteful, manipulative and a liar who used people however she saw fit. How Marie Higginbotham had ended up with a daughter so vindictive was as good a guess as any when Marie was a hard-working, stubborn but brilliant woman.

Renee and Marie had never gotten on, their personalities clashing over every little thing but both as stubborn as the other one. Bella was nothing like her mother, sharing several traits with her grandmother but at least being able to live relatively peaceful with her mother over the years.

Charlie was excited for his daughter's return, wanting desperately to be a part of her life after having stood on the sidelines for the last four years because that was Bella's choice. He would work harder at getting to know her again, work harder at being a better parent to her then he had been over the last 20 years of her life.

It was the least he could do. She'd been the one constant source of light in his life from the moment she'd been placed in his arms at 3am, September 13th 1987 and despite everything that had happened in the last few years, he loved her unconditionally but also knew that Bella wouldn't know that. He wasn't good at voicing his feelings to anyone, preferring to bottle everything up much like Bella did when she was younger.