Title: Vocalise
Author: pantheradraconis
Rating: T for now
Pairing: Bella/Rosalie
Summary: Alice had a vision that involved Rosalie and Bella, the new kid at school. What did Alice see? And how will it effect every member of the Cullen clan?
Vocalise
by pantheradraconis
Chapter 9: Charlie
Arching his shoulders back and lightly shaking out his stiff muscles, Charlie climbed his way out of the police cruiser. Slowly rummaging through the back seat, the Chief of Police grabbed his fishing gear and leaned it against the side of the porch. It would rest there uncared for, until next Saturday, regardless of rain or sun. Sometimes he wondered why there were no fish in the cooler he now unloaded from the trunk of the car, but mostly just in jest. He shoved the cooler onto the porch easily, but knocked off a pair of jeans that had been hung over the railing. Grunting, Charlie picked up the pair and examined them; they were obviously Bella's given the short leg and small waist. Turning the pants around to see the front, Charlie emitted a low hum as he remembered Bella spilling ice cream all down the front of herself the night before. The denim seemed rinsed out and dried, so he tossed the pair over his shoulder. Letting the cooler slowly drain off the side of the porch into the grass, Charlie climbed the front steps and grabbed the two leftover beers before heading into the house.
Crash!
"Bella?" Charlie questioned up the stairs, wondering what all the racket was. "Bella, are you okay up there?'
"Charlie! Ouf, yes I'm fine! Charlie!" Looking quite disheveled, Bella half stepped, half tripped, her way down the stairs. "Have you seen my backpack? I mean, not my backpack, but a piece of paper, a small one. About this size." The teenager held up her hands for mere seconds portraying a square shape with her fingers, or maybe it was a triangle. Charlie really wasn't sure what was going on. "I can't find it anywhere!"
Looking around the house, Bella's father could see quite clearly that his daughter had been looking everywhere for this piece of paper. The place looked like a rifled mess. The cushions on the couch were loose, the carpet's edge kicked up, the TV remote on the floor, everything was amiss.
"Um, do you remember where you put it?" Well, that wasn't the best question the man of the house could have thought of, but he had been up since 4am and he usually came home to a quiet house on a Saturday after his regular fishing trips. It was only noontime, but Charlie was ready for a sandwich and a nap in front of the TV. Looking at his daughter's annoyed expression, Charlie sighed, "I mean, what are we looking for? Does it have to do with some homework?"
"No! My homework is already done, I have no life here! And it's going to stay that way if I don't find Alice's phone number! Or is it Rosalie's? Maybe it's Emmett's, I don't know. It's just that Alice and Rosalie asked me to go shopping with them and you know I don't really care for shopping, but it was a trip to Port Angeles, and there's this bookstore I wanted to check out there. And I just figured it'd be nice to go out with some people, no offense Charlie, but you know what I mean. Out to somewhere besides the diner with my dad. And I just can't find the number anywhere!" The teenager started to ransack the living room once again, only mumbling the last few sentences.
Charlie walked into the kitchen area and placed one beer in the fridge. He cracked his shoulders and dropped Bella's jeans to the floor. The sound made the teen jump and look over at her dad. He apologized quickly, explaining how he found the jeans out on the porch. "They're dry now, but I think I may have dropped them in a muddy area." Sure enough the jeans had a scuff mark directly over the right front pocket.
Bella look at the pair and merely shrugged, "I'll throw them in the wash tomorrow as long as the ice cream stain got out." She was beginning to calm down with the presence of her father. They didn't know each other very well, Bella having grown up with her mother in Phoenix and only visiting her father for short intervals while she was still in the single digits, but the two understood each other. They spoke the same language. Bella would come home and cook dinner, they would eat in near silence, and then part to their respective areas within the home: Charlie in front of the flat-screen, Bella in her room. No one hovered, no one asked too many questions, they simply were. And both appreciated that attribute in the other.
The teen walked over to her dad and alleviated him of the jeans. She lightly brushed the small amount of dried dirt off the pocket, a few grains falling to the kitchen floor, when she felt something in the front pocket. The wheels started turning as the clockwork mechanics of the teens brain processed the new information. She slipped her hand into the pocket and pulled out a tiny, folded piece of paper. Before Charlie could ask, Bella squealed with delight and tossed the jeans back at her unsuspecting father. The excitement didn't last as long as the taste of denim in Charlies mouth, however. As Bella attempted to unfold the paper she realized how long it had been in the pocket. Unfolding a dried out, soaked piece of paper was difficult enough, but finding out all the ink had ran out and that Bella was left no better off than if she had never found the slip to begin with, was too much for the teen's up and down emotions of the day.
Bella had woken up excited about her day, then panicked that she might have to form full sentences around Rosalie; the teen's shower calmed her down with the idea of going to a bookstore, but was soon replaced with horror when she realized she'd lost the phone number. Finding the slip of paper to only have it blank was too much stress, and the teen merely whimpered her way up to her room. She was convinced this was the end of her social life in Forks.
Her father watched for a short while as his daughter's facial expressions changed several times in 60 seconds. He then decided he needed the second beer before sitting down. He turned his back towards the teen and opened the refrigerator door. After retrieving said beer, Charlie noticed a small magnet he received from the local hospital several years back. "Rosalie? Alice? Aren't those, yeah, aren't those Dr. Cullen's kids? Have you tried the phone book?" Grunting as he bent down, Charlie reached for the phone book hidden away in a lower cabinet shelf in the kitchen. He then started thumbing through the surprisingly long list of names, and huffed when he found Cullen, Carlisle. He grabbed the phone and began dialing the number listed, only then realizing that Bella hadn't been paying him any attention and had vanished upstairs, albeit quieter than when he had first entered the house.
A/N: I got to admit, Charlie is the easiest person to write. All I had him do was grunt and be confused. Nice. Lol, anyways, maybe I should just write the whole rest of the story from Charlie's point of view. Now THAT would be a special first kiss!
Keep up the reviews and love and all that wonderfulness you are all so wonderful at and I will keep up the updates. And go check out What Am I Feeling by the-poetry-of-ink and my profile: it has a link with a playlist blog that's not much yet, but it has the playlist of this very fanfic! So yeah, if you like this fanfic and you like music, it's a pair made in Forks! [Oh w-o-w I am just soooo funny! Aren't you glad I don't try to use too much wit in my fanfics? Hah! I need to go to sleep...]
