So, I actually had a bit of time to turn this out during work today. Now I'm off to my darn dress fitting. Fun fun. Wish me luck.
:) Hope you enjoy!
Charlie was sitting on her bed again.
He'd been sitting there for hours, lost in thought, still in his clothes since the night before. His arms were wrapped around one of her round purple throw pillows, the top of which was slightly moist. His gaze was fixed on the hardwood floor and hadn't wavered for some time.
He heard the muffled sound of the telephone ringing from downstairs and cringed. It had been about the fourth time that hour and it was before six in the morning.
Charlie knew he was being a coward.
Imagining what the call could be about, he shuddered. What if someone had found Bella? What if it was Bella on the other line? How could he tell her that Edward had died in his arms and he had been unable to do anything about it? What if it was news that she was dead too? He was so shaken from the last few day's events that all he wanted to do was curl up on her bed and ignore the outside world completely.
He wanted to be like Bella had been when Edward had left.
Of course he'd seen people die before. In his line of work, it happened all of the time, even in a town as small and quiet as Forks. His mother had died peacefully in his presence years ago. But at the time, he had known it was coming. This, though, had shaken him to the core. He didn't know if it was simply because Edward was so young or because of his connection with Bella, but he was having a very bad time of it. Watching the look on the Cullen's faces hadn't been any easier. The way that Carlisle had sunk to the floor in defeat was hard to watch. Charlie had known Dr. Cullen for a long time, had seen him deal with countless deaths and sick patients. He'd always been so strong and supportive of the families. To lose his own son, being such a well renowned doctor, must make him feel like a failure.
Much like he felt, being a cop and not being able to find his missing daughter.
He heard the clicking of the answering machine, but could not hear the voice that was leaving a message. Tossing the pillow back onto the other side of the bed, he brought both hands up to his bloodshot, tearing eyes and rubbed them with his fists like a child. He pushed himself off of the bed, his body weary. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he knew that if he were to try it wouldn't work. His thoughts were racing all over the place. If he did manage to fall asleep, he was sure that his dreams would be more like nightmares.
Sighing, he turned towards the door, ready to check the messages and face the music. As he turned, he tripped on something, causing him to lose his balance and grab onto the bed to support himself.
Charlie stared down at the offending loose floorboard.
He bent down and was about to pull it up when the telephone rang again.
"Alright, alright!" He muttered under his breath, getting up. He made a promise to himself that after he faced whoever was on the phone, he would come up here and fix the floorboard. He stomped downstairs, thinking that it must have happened somewhat recently, otherwise Bella would have tripped over it every single day that she had lived here.
He reached the phone on the fifth ring, at the same time as the answering machine picked it up. He jammed his thumb down on it to get it to stop. "Hello?" He shouted over his own recording.
"Charlie! Why haven't you been picking up?" Renee said tearfully into the receiver.
The recording stopped and Charlie almost dropped the phone at the same time. "Renee, what's going on?" He said fearfully.
She sniffled. "Nothing, I had a bad dream about Bella. I was calling to find out if you'd heard any news."
Charlie closed his eyes and let himself sink into one of the kitchen chairs. He'd thought for a moment that Bella had been able to get all of the way to Florida before something happened. "No Renee, no news about Bella." Exhausted, he rested his head on the table and balanced the receiver on his ear.
There was a moment of silence. "But there's news about something else?" She asked curiously. He inwardly groaned. For as scatterbrained as she was, she had always been able to pick things up when he was trying not to hide something from her. She'd been that way since before they were married to each other. She knew him too well.
He weighed his options. While it really would serve no purpose telling her, it might come up in the future and he didn't want her to find out then. If Bella were to ever return or be found, then it was going to become an issue. "Yes." He coughed. "The Cullen's have come back to town."
Renee gasped. "Really? Have you spoken to them? Have you told them about Bella? Are they going to help?" The stream of questions was giving Charlie a headache. Her voice became slightly angry. "Did you punch Edward in the face?"
This time, Charlie moaned out loud. Without knowing how to ease into it, he decided not to beat around the bush. "Renee… Edward is dead." He heard her quick intake of breath and nothing else. He took that as an invitation to continue. "He died in my arms a few hours ago." Charlie could feel the tears rising in his eyes again. "The reason they left was because he's been sick, very sick. He didn't tell Bella directly, but I think she knew anyway. I ran into Carlisle at the airport when I dropped you off the other night. They were getting the house ready for him to be transported back and he told me everything."
He took a deep breath and everything rushed out. "I pulled over a car for speeding late last night and it ended up being his brother Jasper. Alice was there too and so was Esme." A tear leaked from his eye and dripped onto the table. "I asked Esme to step out of the car so I could talk to her about Edward and about Bella. And as it turned out, Edward was in the back seat too. Renee, I've never seen someone look so much like a corpse before that was still living."
"He was so handsome when I saw him, he didn't seem sick at all." Renee whispered her first words in minutes.
Charlie nodded even though she wasn't able to see him. "You wouldn't have even recognized him. He seemed so dazed. Immediately asked where Bella was, even though we were in the middle of nowhere. Esme got out of the car. I just wanted to tell her not to tell Edward about Bella… I knew it wouldn't help him to hear about what's been going on. But he heard me anyway-" His voice broke.
He tried not to sob openly into the phone and forced himself to keep talking. "He got out of the car, and tried walking to where Esme and I were standing. But he didn't make it, he fell. I got to him in time, so he didn't hit the ground. But he was terrified and he kept saying he had to find Bella. He just passed out. And Alice started screaming. He wasn't breathing Renee. I let him die."
"Charles Swan… no you didn't. Don't think like that ever." Renee's voice was forceful. "I'm sure you did everything that you could for that boy." He heard her sniffle again and knew that she must have started crying again too. "I'm going to come back out there. When is the funeral?"
Charlie sat up in his chair. "Renee, you really don't have to do that, you just left. What about Phil?"
She scoffed. "Phil can handle things on this end by himself. You need me and when we find Bella, she's going to need me too." Her voice lowered. "Charlie… how are we going to tell Bella about this?"
Gazing out of the window, he watched as the sun began to raise, a rarity in Forks. He swallowed. "I don't know." He admitted.
"She's not going to survive this." Renee stated sadly.
"Renee, I've got to go. I'll find out when the funeral is and I'll give you a call." He didn't want to hear her talk about what would happen if they would have the opportunity to tell Bella.
"Take care of yourself Charlie. We'll figure something out. I'll see you soon." Renee said and quickly hung up on her end.
It was only after he replaced the receiver on the hanger that he realized that he had wanted to ask her about the nightmare. Wiping his eyes again, he hoped that he remembered the next time that they spoke. It was unusual for Renee to have nightmares to begin with; it must have frightened her badly if she had gotten up so early. The first time the phone had started to ring it had been three o'clock in the morning, almost on the dot, making it six on her end.
He finally took his jacket off and dropped it on the end of the banister then headed towards the little closet under the stairs where he kept his tools. He needed to keep himself as busy as possible if he wanted to stay sane. Reaching in, he pulled out his toolbox, closed the door and headed back up the stairs to Bella's bedroom.
Charlie stopped just short of the board and got on his knees. He looked at it curiously. It looked like the piece had actually been pulled up on purpose. He took his hammer out of the box and used the sharp end to pull the board up the rest of the way.
He was startled at what he found underneath.
Pictures, a jewel case holding a CD, plane tickets to Florida. Why had Bella hidden these things under here before she left? He'd imagine that she would have taken any items with her that reminded her of Edward, not leave them. He was staring at a picture of the two of them from her birthday. Both happy, smiling contently for the camera. Bella had a sparkle in her eye that he had never seen her with, even when she had been a young child. Edward was looking at Bella as if she were the only thing in the world for him.
Charlie's hand shook at the realization of why she had left the pictures.
She wouldn't need them where she went.
He squeezed his eyes shut. It would be just like her, to go and harm herself away from him. Where he wouldn't be there to find her or clean up after her. Or find her and save her. Make him think that she had just run away.
Charlie dropped the pictures to the floor and raced back downstairs to the telephone. He dialed the police station and impatiently banged on the wall as he waited for someone to answer the phone. "Forks Police Department, what is your emergency?"
"Katie!" He nearly shouted into the phone. "Listen, gather everyone and have them go to La Push beach. Tell them to search there. I'll meet them."
"Of course Chief. I'll let everyone know. Um…good luck?" Her young voice wavered as she realized that was probably not the proper thing to say.
"Thanks Katie. I'll talk to you later." He hung up and dashed towards the stairs, grabbing his jacket, and then rushed out of the door to his car.
Alice sighed loudly from the cocoon of Jasper's arms. He rubbed small circles on her back as they lay upon the top of their bed. "What is it?" He asked quietly.
She changed positions only slightly so she could stare into his eyes. "Renee is coming for Edward's funeral. Charlie is pretty sure that Bella's committed suicide, he found the things that Edward left and jumped to the wrong conclusion." She rolled her head back and laughed a little. "This is all so ridiculous. There's too much to do!" She held up her hand and began to count things off on each finger. "Edward's funeral to plan, a baby to deliver, Bella's suicide to fake, getting out of here before the wolves realize we're about to break a treaty…" She looked at Jasper helplessly. "And I can barely see any of it!"
Jasper brought his hand up and ruffled her hair. "We'll be fine I'm sure. Now that Bella's up and about it's been a lot easier on the family emotionally. We'll figure something out. But do you want to talk to Bella about the suicide thing first? That's going to be hard on Charlie."
Alice frowned. "I suppose so, but the way that she left really leaves no other option. She didn't bring anything with her; she never planned to go back. And it's not like she can just show up one day knocking on the door to say hello, when she's hopefully going to be a vampire soon."
He nodded. "Well… we have to let her make the decision. We'll go talk to her about it right now." He made a move to get off of the bed and take her with him when he noticed her grimace. His eyes softened. "I'll go talk to her about it… you can stay here."
She smiled at him sadly. "Tell her I love her."
Nodding, he returned her smile and bend to kiss her sweetly on the lips. "Your wish is my command darlin'. Now go online and spend a crazy amount of money on two caskets that aren't going to be used." Her eyes brightened at the thought of shopping. His job done, he made his way downstairs to have a very awkward conversation with his new sister.