A/N: Not the easiest chapter, I'd imagine. *holds your hand*
The week after Alice's birthday went from bad to worse. Charlie had always known it would. Everyone had known that. He'd discussed it with Carlisle and Esme, but what could he do? What could any of them do but wait?
Five days after Alice's birthday was Jasper's birthday. This time, there was no taking anyone else's feelings into consideration. She was already awake when Charlie left for work, and she hadn't acknowledged him further than a nod when he said good morning. Esme reported later that to the best of her knowledge, Alice spent the entire day at the cemetery. When Esme and Carlisle showed up to pay their respects, she gave them about twenty minutes-during which she spoke not a word-before she asked them to please just leave.
After that she had good and bad days. Some days she could smile and joke. Other days her eyes were haunted, and he was lucky to get two or three words out of her at a time. She let Emmett take her out to dinner one night, but turned Carlisle down a few days later. The kitchen was finished, and she talked to Charlie about starting another project. The garage was high on her list, but even after he agreed, she didn't throw herself headlong into the project like she had before. She started lists of supplies but never finished them. She would talk about going to Seattle or Port Angeles on the weekend, but then she would sleep until the afternoon. More than once he heard her rescheduling a client because she had never made it out of bed that day.
She functioned. She survived. She continuously refused anyone's offer to talk.
What could they do?
Weeks passed in a strange limbo, and Alice again was a ghost in his house.
Then, one night, everything changed.
Charlie had dozed off in front of the T.V. so he was groggy when he woke and dragged himself to his feet. He cocked an ear and listened. It had become his habit to check on Alice by whatever means necessary. More often than not these days, it meant listening to hear her walking around in her room.
The house was silent, and he hoped that meant she was getting some sleep.
He got up, stretched, and headed for his own room, his own bed. When he got to the top of the stairs, Charlie hesitated. He looked at Alice's closed bedroom door and the faint light that shone beneath it, thinking about the merits of knocking. It was late, for one thing, and for another, she'd made it clear repeatedly how much she didn't want to be bothered. He started to turn away. Stopped. Stared at the wood again as though he could make it open with sheer willpower alone.
There was something to be said about cops and hunches. It was an unnamed, uncommon emotion. It was a paranoia that made his skin crawl and his stomach twist, an uneasiness that made his heart race. It was the voice in his head that said screw privacy; something was wrong.
It didn't take a psychiatrist to diagnose her with depression. It didn't take a genius to understand the weight of everything that had happened to her. She'd said herself before, she already knew it would get better, that she could survive. Surviving and thriving meant she could lose even more the next time around. After the devastation she'd been through, he wouldn't have blamed her if she ended it, but that didn't mean he was going to sit by and let it happen either.
Charlie knocked on her door. "Alice?" There wasn't any answer, and Charlie's heart pounded hard enough he heard it between his ears. He knocked again-a policeman's knock. "Alice." He waited. No answer. "Alice, I'm coming in to check on you."
The room was dark save for a small bedside lamp, but he saw her right away. She was sitting on the floor, back against the bed. Her head was tilted backward, resting on the mattress. But what made Charlie run to her side was the fact her thigh was streaked with rivulets of blood.
As he dropped to his knees at her side, he got the whole picture. She was wearing short shorts so her wound-wounds-were easily visible. There were three of them. Three neat, straight lines, and even without seeing the collection of faded scars that littered her legs, he understood with certainty exactly what had happened. Sure enough, she still held a bloody razorblade in one trembling hand.
"Alice," he said, his voice soft and calm, completely belying the horror he felt. He was sickened, not by her actions but by the strength of her pain. "Alice." Her eyes were unfocused and her face was tear streaked but her expression was calm. Eerily calm. Her breaths were shallow. Charlie took her face in his hands. He couldn't smell alcohol on her breath. "Alice, look at me. I need you to tell me if you took anything."
Slowly, achingly slowly, her eyes found his. She blinked.
"Did you take anything?" he asked again.
She sniffled and shook her head minutely.
"Okay. That's good." He brushed her hair back, the motion tender. She was in a daze, and he understood that place only too well. "That's really good, sweetheart. We're going to get you cleaned up, okay?"
Alice didn't answer, but Charlie didn't expect her too. He brushed his hand down her arm and took the razor from her fingers. Her eyes followed it, and he understood that too-how fascinating it could be to see the way blood stained metal and skin. He set the blade on the nightstand and lifted her. She sagged against him, as though she didn't have the energy to keep herself upright, but she looped her arms around his neck.
He carried her to the bathroom and set her on the counter. Inside he was in turmoil, but his hands were steady as he wiped the blood from her leg. The wounds were deep. Not deep enough to stitch, but they would scar. What broke his heart the most were the old scars, the marks that had once looked exactly like the red, raw wounds. He looked at them and wondered when and why.
Alice's life story was written on her skin, her pain carved into her flesh. Each of the marks-and there were so many, too many-was a souvenir of a time when the pain of a razor flaying open her skin was the only distraction from the pain she felt in the depths of her soul. Physical pain was so much easier to cope with than wounds of the heart.
"You can tell me I'm a freak." Charlie's heart skipped a beat when she spoke, breaking the long, heavy silence between them. Her voice was thin-a barely there whisper. "I know I'm a freak."
He lifted his eyes to hers briefly. They were focused but dull-lifeless and defeated. He looked back down to her leg, patting it dry, watching the blood well up fresh from the cuts. "Why would I do something like that?"
"My stepmother used to tell me that."
"Yeah, well. Your stepmother is a bitch." He wrapped one arm around her and hugged her as he pressed the ran the peroxide-laden cottonball over the fresh wound. Hugging her seemed like the right thing to do. There was obviously something wrong, and the peroxide had to sting like a sonovabitch; she deserved a little comfort. She hissed in pain and turned her face against his chest. He noticed too late he was brushing his fingers along her side. He would have stopped, but he felt the tension drain from her shoulders.
She sniffled. "I did it all to myself, you know. All of that." She lifted her head and pulled the sleeve of her shirt up to reveal the scars hidden there. "All of this."
Charlie didn't say anything at first, concentrating instead on selecting the right sized bandage and covering up the angry red marks. Eventually, though, even that was done, and an admission balanced on the tip of his tongue. He hesitated. He had a secret. He had a secret that had the potential of making her feel like less of a freak, but what would that secret cost him? His throat was tight and a thrill of fear made his hair stand on end, but the aura of defeat that radiated from Alice made his decision for him. He cleared his throat and stepped away from her. She kept staring down at the the floor, her shoulders slumped down even further, but she finally raised her eyes when she heard the rustle of his shirt coming off. Breathing hard, he turned to the side so she could see.
The scars on his shoulders weren't nearly as vivid as hers. They were old. Very old. She gasped, and then it was him who couldn't lift his eyes from the floor. He'd never shown anybody these scars before. The few times he'd been with a woman, he'd kept his shirt on.
When he felt the brush of her fingertips against his shoulder, he started. Ugly was an emotion, and when Charlie even thought of those scars, it was all he could feel. So the idea anyone could touch them, touch him, was a shock. It was like watching someone lovingly pet a slug.
And there was something loving about the way her fingertips skimmed across his skin. There was a reverence there, a tenderness. Her eyes, no longer quite so dull, were warm with empathy. She traced the scars one by one. "Why?" she asked with the same note of quiet despair with which someone might ask why there were homeless people or abandoned puppies.
Why did bad things happen to good people?
Charlie found it difficult to speak around the lump in his throat. It was painful to swallow, but after a few tries he managed it. "My wife had left me. I knew I was going to miss all the important moments in my daughter's life, that I was going to seem like a deadbeat dad to her. I thought it was inevitable that Bella would hate me. My parents were dying, and I was a disappointment to them." He shrugged. "It was the only thing that made sense then."
The words sounded stupid, and he felt stupid for feeling so damn sorry for himself. He was the kind of man who believed he was in charge of his own destiny, and that happiness was a choice. And though he never would have thought of her as pathetic for taking the same route, he felt pathetic.
Alice sat up straighter and pressed her lips to his shoulder, to his scars. He felt the hot splash of a tear against his skin. She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him, and he let his hand curl around her. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he closed his eyes, breathing easier for the first time in minutes.
After a few quiet moments, he propped his finger beneath her chin to tilt her head up. His intention was to ask her if she could sleep now, but the words died on his lips when their eyes met.
Maybe it struck him right then that he had never been so naked in front of another human being before. He had let her see something no one else ever had, and she hadn't rejected him. More than that, she'd understood. He'd given her that piece of himself so she wouldn't feel alone and only then realized it meant he wasn't alone either. If she was a freak, they were freaks together.
Maybe it was that moment of profound connection, or maybe it was the light he saw in her eyes. It was dim and distant, but it was there again, alive and warm. Maybe it was the way she looked at him or maybe it was the way the brush of her fingers along his bare back sent shivers down his spine.
Whatever the explanation, the fact of the matter was in that instant, something changed, and it was so tangible Charlie felt it happen. It wasn't a thought; it was a knowledge.
The first kiss was a surprise. In retrospect, he would never know which of them moved first. All he knew was one second he was looking at her, taking in her beauty and strength and pain, and the next his eyes were closed and the feel of her was all he knew. Her lips were soft, her taste salty from too many tears. He pulled back, but only for an instant before they were kissing again. He made no conscious decision to do it. It was as though he drew her in as he drew in a new breath. Her hands pressed against his back, pushing him closer, and he moved his fingers from her chin to cup around the back of her neck.
They kissed slowly, as though neither quite knew what was going on, if this was really happening, but firm because whatever was happening, this was good. Better than feeling good, it felt right, and when things had been so wrong for so long, right was a giddy relief. Charlie was greedy for it, and he took what he could. Her tongue pressed against his lips, and he opened himself to her kiss, let their tongues press and stroke.
He hardly realized he'd pulled her off the counter until her legs were wrapped around him, her weight in his arms.
Eventually thought caught up with him. There was a lot he could have done then. There was a lot he wanted to do and too much to think about. He sighed when their lips parted, and she whimpered. For a minute, they breathed. Charlie pressed soft kisses to her chin and Alice scratched her fingers through his hair. She brushed her lips once again with his and broke the silence. "Stay with me tonight. Please. I just want to be warm tonight."
He nodded, and with her still wrapped around him, he took her not to her room but to his. He wrapped the blankets around them and cupped her cheek, running his thumb over her lips. She slotted her leg between his, seeking, as she'd asked, warmth. Comfort. She kissed him once, tucked her head under his chin, and fell asleep.
Charlie, for once not wanting to think at all if only for a few hours, promptly followed her.
A/N: Thanks to barburella and many, many, many thanks to jessypt and her flails. Her flails make my life.
How are we out there, friends?
