A/N: Gorgeous banner by Mina Rivera. I love her work. Even when it gives me the heebiejeebies (I know I'm writing it, but SEEING it is...like.. *hides under the desk and rocks slowly back and forth*) ... Anyway. LOVELY. Love it. Love her. Love you alllllll.

Charlie had always liked Alice. He hadn't thought he would. In fact, when Bella started hanging around at the Cullen house, Charlie was naturally wary of the lot of them. Not only was she obviously falling for this kid, Edward, but she was fast becoming best friends with one of the Cullen's foster kids. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of his then seventeen-year-old daughter hanging out with a twenty-one-year-old misfit. The last thing he needed was for Bella to get the idea in her head that being married at eighteen was a good idea.

But Alice had proved him wrong. She was a good friend to Bella, and when she came over, she made the house brighter. Unlike the other young people Bella brought over on occasion, Alice seemed to think of him as a real person instead of a parental unit or worse, a cop. She was interesting and interested.

It got to the point Edward and Alice came over together.

"Is my daughter using you to get me not to complain about how much time she spends with your brother?" he'd asked once it dawned on him.

Alice had grinned and winked at him. "Don't worry, Charlie." She'd put her hands on his shoulders and leaned down so her voice was soft in his ear, her breath warm against his skin. "Don't tell him I said so, but Edward is one of the good ones. Bella's in good hands."

Now the troubled young woman was a ghost in his house. Of course he knew she was a foster child and their stories were rarely easy, but he couldn't wrap his head around how a person was supposed to survive the kind of tragedy she had, let alone in triplicate.

Most of his life, Charlie had been a heavy sleeper. Getting his six to eight hours of sleep only made sense. Even as a very young man, he wasn't one to challenge that system. He liked how he felt when his mind was clear. He could think better, function better. What could be bad about that?

That should have been his first clue that his relationship with Renee Higginbotham was ill advised at best. Everything about Renee was a whirlwind from the way she spoke-bouncing from one topic to the next with hardly a breath in between-to their relatively short-lived romance. She'd wrecked havoc on his sleep. He had never been more tired in all his life, but he'd also never been so enthralled, so impassioned, and in love.

But like a hurricane, when she left, taking their baby daughter with her, she left a wake of destruction and debris. Between the course of their relationship and the aftermath, Charlie didn't sleep well for several years.

Now he found himself restless again, awake and staring at the wall in the middle of the night. Irritated, he climbed out bed. There was nothing useful about being awake at two in the morning.

After another few minutes' deliberation he figured as long as he was up, he might as well get a sandwich out of the ordeal.

When he stepped out into the hallway, he paused. Bella's door was cracked open.

His daughter had gone back to school months before, but Alice stayed. Charlie couldn't say he understood. He knew the Cullens wanted nothing more than to help her. They were the nurturing type - exactly the kind of people who knew the right thing to do, the best way to offer comfort in any situation. But for whatever reason, Alice felt just a little bit better in Charlie's house instead of theirs. Maybe it was the memories. She and Jasper had both been loved and cherished there. Heck if Charlie understood what was going on in that head of hers. He missed her easy smile though. He missed the spark in her eyes when she was telling a story and the enthusiasm in her tone.

Charlie padded across the hall and peered around the corner of Bella's door carefully. It was dark and empty. When he looked downstairs he could see a light coming from the living room area. He tapped his fingers on the wall, wondering if he should retreat to his bedroom.

It was a silly, cowardly thing to think. First off, this was his house. There was no reason he should feel like a prisoner in his own house. For what reason? Because he was scared he'd go downstairs and Alice would be crying and he'd have to do something about it?

Shaking his head, Charlie headed down the stairs. He peeked around the corner of the landing and spotted Alice immediately. She wasn't crying. In fact, if anything, she looked curious. She was curled up in the window seat with only the small lamp above her lit. On her lap was…

A photograph album?

Charlie hardly recognized it. It had been a long time since there was film to develop and longer still since he'd owned a camera, digital or otherwise. Renee had given Bella a camera for her birthday senior year, but she rarely printed those photos out. They went straight to Facebook or whatever website that passed for a photo album these days. Hey, at least you couldn't lose those in a fire, he figured, even though he found the idea of putting private photos on the Internet for all to consume more than a little bizarre.

Charlie only owned one photo album. There were a few in a box in the attic, leftover relics from his parents, but there was only one album in the main part of the house. It was an album Charlie kept hidden away, and it hadn't seen the light of day since Bella was two years old.

He cleared his throat more out of habit than anything. It was a tactic he used both on his teenage daughter when she'd still been in his house and with people he caught breaking minor laws. Alice looked up, but she didn't look guilty. "Hey, Charlie. What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I'm snooping," she said, utterly unapologetic. "I found this in a drawer somewhere. It looks like no one has touched it in ages." She readjusted herself on the window seat so she was sitting up with her feet on the ground. "Come over here and give me some background."

Charlie hesitated. There was a good reason he'd hidden that album away. He wasn't even sure why he kept something that reminded him of everything he'd lost. But that had been years ago. Since then he'd gotten his daughter back. It was pathetic to feel so tangled up in knots about a few old photos, wasn't it?

He crossed the room and hesitated again when she patted the seat beside her. The space wasn't big, and Charlie wondered for a few seconds just how appropriate it was to sit so close. He wasn't used to sharing intimate space at all. Even when Bella lived with him, there was always enough room for both of them to have their own personal space and then some. In the end, though, he sat. Alice was an adult, and she obviously wasn't uncomfortable seeing as she was the one inviting him to sit down.

Alice wasted no time spreading the album over both their laps. She scooted even closer, so their legs were touching, and flipped to the first page. The first picture stung more than Charlie wanted it to. It was a picture of him and Renee at their senior prom. They looked happy and-

"You look so young. Like fourteen," Alice said. "You're just babies."

Charlie snorted. "We were both still seventeen though I think Renee turned eighteen a week later." He hesitated, but for some reason the words tumbled out anyway. "And as for babies, we were about to have one."

"Oh, wow. I didn't realize you were so young when you had Bella." She offered him a small smile, still just a ghost of the grin he was used to, and bumped his shoulder. "You're quite the spring chicken."

Charlie shook his head.

"So." Alice flipped a few more pages to where a now very pregnant Renee stood in the kitchen, the kitchen of this house, hands on her hips and paintbrush in her hand. "How did a snot-nosed kid end up with his own house?"

"My grandfather. He left me a small fortune when he died. It was supposed to pay for some fancy college, a trip to Europe, and then maybe, maybe, first and last month's rent on my first apartment far away from here. But I had a high school girlfriend who already wanted more than I could offer her. A house seemed like a good idea. Why not. I was already in over my head. I squeezed new dad, new husband, and first time homeowner into the same six month period."

Alice's breath caught, and when she looked up, there was pain in her eyes. "You got married when you turned eighteen, too?"

"That same day."

They both fell into a silence too heavy to be comfortable. Charlie wasn't sure what to do with it, what to say, or whether it was her sadness or his that made it so unbearable. He cleared his throat and started rambling. "It was a lot to handle. Even with the huge down payment, I still had the mortgage to consider. I had a job at Newton's just like Bella. It wasn't Newton's then, but you get the idea. I was going to school. I had already figured out there was a guaranteed job waiting for me at the station if I could get through my general ed and police academy training." He tapped the picture of his very pregnant wife. "I told Renee she could do whatever she wanted to the house."

Alice huffed. "That explains why the cabinets are yellow and green. They're horrible, you know. Both colors alone would be just… ugh. Together?" She shook her head.

Charlie had to smirk. He knew his cabinets were ugly, but there was a sense of fondness when he thought about them. Renee was nothing if not quirky. She saw the world differently than most, and he still admired that about her. "Renee always said she was trying to make the place brighter. I didn't much care what color my cabinets are so I let her do whatever made her happy." If only making her happy had been as simple as bright colored cabinets.

Alice hummed. "That was always going to fail."

It took Charlie a few seconds to figure out she wasn't talking about his marriage, though she could have been.

"You can't make a house bright with paint alone," Alice said. "Even paint needs light. The answer here is simple. You need a source of light that isn't the sun since we have no control of that here in Forks. You need lamps. Track lighting or, even better, recessed lighting."

She shifted so her back was against the wall of the window seat and she was facing him, her knee against his thigh. "Hey, so here's an idea. If you're interested, I could fix up your kitchen for you. We can do the whole nine - fix the cabinets and the lights. I can do all the work, even the electrical stuff."

Charlie tilted his head, taken aback. "You're a hairdresser. How does a hairdresser know how to do electrical work?"

Her expression was disparaging. "I'm a cosmetologist. Get it right. And that's not the only thing I want to do with my life. It was just easy. I had to be able to support myself while I figured out what I really wanted to do." She waved her hand. "Anyway. When I was a kid, Esme used to take me with her to all those home renovations she did. She said it was to keep me out of trouble." Alice rolled her eyes, but her look was fond. "It was actually all very interesting, and I learned a lot from her and the people she worked with. I learned how to do a lot of things including minor electrical work, which is all your kitchen would take. I'm not licensed or anything like that, but I could do it."

She was serious, he realized, and more than that, the more she talked about, the more excited she became.

"Charlie, it would be great. Just a little work could increase the value of your house. We could go to Olympia this weekend or even to Seattle if you wanted to drop in on Bella for a bit. It would be so much fun."

Charlie was a little bowled over. Was she really asking to do home renovations on his house? "I… I don't know. Why would you do that for me?"

"It'd be the least I can do. I've been here for too long without really pulling my weight."

"It's not like I mind the company. And you've cooked a lot. And bought groceries."

Alice dropped her gaze. "I just… The shop doesn't keep me busy enough. It would be nice to have something to do. A project to work on. To keep me distracted." She raised her head and tried for a smile. "And really, those cabinets are hideous. At least let me redo those… but I really think you should let me work with the lighting. I'll even help out on the cost since it was my idea. Please?"

There was a spark of life in her big brown eyes that he hadn't seen in too many months. How could he say no to that? "Alright. Fine. If that's what you really want."

Alice squeaked in pleasure and threw her arms around his neck. "You're the best, Charlie."

He chuckled, squeezing her awkwardly. "Don't see how you figure that, but I'll take it."

A/N: So thanks to everyone who's giving this a shot. Many thanks to my jessypt who is always pushing my boundaries. I usually don't regret it. Usually.