A/N I wanted to just jump right into the story, so here's the first chapter. Please review!

Chapter 1 Tragedy

Bella Swan had lived in Phoenix for most her life. Her parents had decided to go their separate ways when she was only a year old and she had lived with her mom, Renee for the 16 years since. Charlie, her father, had stayed in Forks, Washington, never truly getting over the loss of his family. Bella was the type of person who didn't care what other people thought of her. She was unique and therefore sort of an outcast, but it didn't bother her. She was happy.

At least she had been happy until her life was turned upside down one July afternoon. Bella and her mom had been enjoying the day together, shopping at the local mall. They had just loaded up their day's spoils when they sky suddenly darkened and the first drops of the summer monsoon began to fall from the sky. Living there for so many years, Bella and Renee knew what the storm could bring – high winds, thick walls of dust impenetrable to the eye, and blankets of pouring rain. Arizona was a beautiful place to live with great weather for the most part, but when monsoon season came, everything could chance in the blink of an eye.

Renee had always hated driving in the rain – which was one of the many reasons she had left Forks – so she handed over the keys to Bella as they quickly got in the old blue station wagon. The mall was only 4 miles from their quaint little home, but it proved to be a treacherous journey that would change Bella's life.

The day's storm brought with it all the normal monsoon weather, but it was worse in a sense. Today, not only was there a tremendous amount of rain falling, but the sky also started spitting little chunks of ice. Hail was not unheard of, but it didn't occur often, especially in July, so Bella was not prepared. With the windshield wipers buzzing at full blast, she was slowly making her way home through the flooded streets.

The light she was at had just turned green, so she stepped on the gas and ventured into the intersection. That's when her world fell apart. A semi-truck came barreling through the intersection and t-boned the car on the passenger side. Everything after that seemed to be a total blur. Bella remembered hearing screaming as the air bag and shattered glass exploded in her face, but she was unaware that the shrill sound was coming from her own lips. After that, everything went black.

Charlie Swan was just getting off of a 12-hour shift at the police station, when he received an urgent phone call from Banner Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix. When the office secretary Sue Clearwater tapped on his door and told him about the call, his heart dropped down to his toes and his thoughts immediately drifted to Bella, his daughter whom he hadn't seen in 16 years. There wasn't a day that went by when he didn't think of Bella, his last mental image of her with her big brown eyes smiling up at him. He'd seen pictures and such since then, and talked to her on the phone, but hadn't seen her face to face since Renee took her and walked out on him all those years ago.

Sue cleared her throat to pull Charlie out of his inner thoughts. Back in the present, he told her he would take the call and asked her to close his door on her way out.

"This is Charlie Swan," he answered after taking a deep breath and picking up the receiver.

"Mr. Swan, my name is Dr. Sara Fitzgerald. I work at Banner Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix. I'm sorry to tell you that your daughter has been in a terrible car accident. She's okay, but her mother wasn't as fortunate. Isabella is going to need a familiar face when she wakes up. We need you in Phoenix as soon as possible."

….

What the hell is that beeping? Dammit! My head hurts! What the hell happened?

Bella slowly opened her eyes to an unfamiliar white room. As she looked around, she noticed she was hooked up to a heart monitor and in IV drip. She reached up with her free hand and gently felt her head, which was covered in gauze.

That's when the memory of what happened hit her like a ton of bricks.

"Mom! Mom, where are you," she screamed. "MOOOM!"

The nurse in the hall opened the door after hearing the commotion and yelled something down the hall about needing an mL of Ativan and to page the doctor STAT. She entered the room slowly, being careful not to upset the patient more than she already was, but Bella wasn't having it. "Where the hell is my mother?" she screamed at the nurse.

Ignoring her question, the nurse continued approaching as she reached for a flashlight. "What's the last thing you remember, Miss Swan?" she asked as she shined the beam of light into Bella's eyes.

"I was at the mall with my mom. We were just getting into the car when the damn storm hit. Mom hates driving in the rain so she gave me her car keys. We were about a mile from home when, Oh God! Where is she? Where is my mom?" Bella began to panic again just as another nurse entered with a syringe. She silently walked up to the bedside, followed the tube leading from the machine to a port and injected the contents of the syringe into the IV.

Bella started to feel the effects almost instantly. "What did you just give me? Where is… my… mom?" she started to ask as she suddenly started to get really tired. Her eyes heavy, she looked up at the first nurse and said one more word, "Please," before drifting off to sleep.

She knew she was dreaming, but she couldn't make herself wake up. The image just before her world exploded kept replaying before her eyes. She saw the light turn green and remembered stepping on the gas as the rain and hail pounded everything around her. She looked over at her mom just in time to see the headlights of the truck before it slammed into them. The look of horror on her mother's face just before impact was the prevalent image that kept replaying in her dream.

Finally, a semi-familiar male voice said her name as she felt someone squeeze her hand. Slowly, she opened her eyes to stare into her own. Well, they weren't exactly her eyes, but they were the same shade of rich chocolate brown that she saw every day in the mirror.

"Bella, honey, it's Dad," the stranger said as he squeezed her hand again while maintaining his grip. He reached up with his free hand to push the stray hair out of her face while he smiled at her kindly. "I'm right here honey and I promise it's going to be okay."

Confused, Bella tried to get a better sense of her surroundings. She was still in the hospital but she had no idea what day it was or why this man was here. Where was her mom? Why hadn't she been allowed to see her yet? These questions kept circling her mind until she finally had the courage to speak. "Charlie? Is it really you? What are you doing here and where is mom?"

"Bells, you need to try to stay calm. You and your mom were in a car accident and the hospital called me and asked me to come down here. I hopped on the next plane and got here as soon as I could. Baby, they did everything they could, but your mom didn't make it," Charlie said somberly. "I'm so sorry honey."

Starting to get upset again, Bella lashed out at him. "What the hell do you mean she didn't make it? You can't really mean… she's not… no, she can't be… there's no way she's gone... We were… she… no, it's not possible… no." With tears streaming down her face, her words got harder and harder to understand. She was sitting up now, sobbing into Charlie's shoulder while he gently rubbed her back, allowing her to let it out.

"Shh, baby. It's okay. It's okay, I'm here. Let it out, just let it all out." Charlie continued to try to soothe his little girl until her tears ran out and she fell asleep again. Being a cop at heart, Charlie needed answers. As Bella slept, he quietly left the room to talk to go find the first on scene.

"Ok, so explain to me what happened one more time." Charlie was talking to the first officer on the scene, Embry Call.

"Well Chief Swan, as far as we can tell, Isabella and her mother Renee were driving home from a shopping trip at the mall. They were at 48th Street and Broadway at a red light. Witnesses say that when the light turned green, Isabella continued forward. The weather was some of the worst we've seen out here in a long time and visibility was shit. There was a semi traveling westbound on Broadway. He said he accidently dropped his phone and looked down for just a minute. He had no idea the light had turned red. By the time he looked up, it was too late. He was a split second from slamming into your ex-wife's car. Renee was killed instantly." Officer Call always hated recanting what he had pieced together, but it was especially difficult to talk to a fellow officer. Chief Swan might not work for the Phoenix Police Department, but that didn't make him any less family.

"What about the driver of the semi?" Charlie hated him for what he had done to Bella, but he'd worked one too many traffic accidents to just not care. He knew the man probably had a family of his own and so he had to ask the question.

"He was taken to the hospital with minor injuries." As much as Officer Call hated talking about an accident where a family member was injured or killed, he hated even more talking about the person responsible. He couldn't help but feel guilty when he or she was able to walk away, when an innocent person lost a life. He knew this was irrational, but he couldn't control the empathy he always felt.

Charlie accepted what the young officer told him and decided he'd been away from Bella long enough. He needed to get back to her before she woke up.

"Bella honey, it's not your fault! Please don't think that. With the way the weather was… visibility was so poor… there was no way you could have seen the truck. Witnesses say it just seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Honey, you have to stop blaming yourself!" Charlie was beyond flustered. When Bella finally became conscious enough to really listen to what happened, she took everything hard. She kept insisting that it was all her fault. That if she hadn't have been driving, her mom would still be alive. No amount of begging or explaining on his part would change her mind and he just didn't know what to do.

It had been a week since the accident, and despite his hopes that she would finally realize she was blameless, Bella was being just as stubborn as ever. Ha… he chuckled humorlessly to himself thinking she must have gotten that trait from her mother.

The funeral for Renee was this morning, and Bella was a complete mess. Charlie wasn't sure that she would finally get out of bed to even go. She was only in the hospital for 3 days, but since refused to leave her room. She was falling deeper and deeper into depression and it terrified Charlie.

As Charlie was packing Bella's things, he couldn't help but think back to their conversation this morning…

"Bella, sweetheart, it's time to get ready for your mom's funeral." Bella was lying in bed with her face buried in her pillow, so Charlie came up beside her and gently rubbed her back.

"I'm not going," she bit back at him. "There's no damn point. She's gone and it's all my fault!" Her words were caustic, but Charlie could see how much she truly believed them by the tears streaming down her cheek.

"Honey, think of your mother. If she could hear you now it would break her heart. This is your chance to say good-bye to her and make peace. You need to go."

"Can't you see? I don't deserve to ever find peace again! I killed Mom! She's never going to yell at me to get ready for school again. She's not going to be there to help me get ready for prom or for my wedding. She's gone Charlie, and she's never coming back! How the hell will I ever find peace with that? Why the fuck would I deserve it?"

They'd had this same conversation several times in the past week, but he never seemed to be able to get through to her and it was breaking his heart. The last thing any father wants to see is his child suffering so needlessly. Charlie knew beyond any doubt that the accident was just that… an accident. If anyone was at fault, it was the truck driver who took his eyes off the road. He tried to make Bella understand this, but he just wasn't getting through to her and he didn't know what else he could possibly do.

She had finally relented and got ready for the funeral, but as soon as it was over, she went straight back to her room. Charlie cringed when he heard what he assumed was her fist hit the wall several times before she started sobbing again.

Because Renee never got remarried, Bella would have to come back to Forks to live with him. He knew that uprooting her after such a horrible tragedy would be hard, but he really had no other choice, so he found himself in the present again, in her room, packing up her things. Tomorrow, they would leave together to go back to Forks and Bella would begin her new life. If only Charlie knew what was in store for him.