Previously: Monday night featured Bella's Port Angeles adventure and Edward's visit afterward. Tuesday morning Edward started coming clean about damn near everything. So everything's supposed to be easier now, right? Also: Charlie's not stupid.
Under Pressure
Edward, a familiar tenor rang in his mind.
Biology class had been a singular experience today, the way Bella's body hummed in the darkened room, and how she seemed to understand that, just once, it was better not to hold hands, but to explore the sensation that could come from simple proximity. The whole experience thrilled both the romantic and the scientist in each of them. Birds and bees navigated their migratory patterns not through sight, but through an innate sense of the earth's magnetic poles. Edward wondered if his attraction—not his love, which was something that grew with every conversation, but attraction—could be explained the same way. Bella must have been his magnetic north, because he couldn't keep his thoughts away from her, certainly once not the next class started.
Spanish class for him. Gym class for Bella. His favorite time of day. Until this little interruption.
Mr. Old-Fashioned Gentleman sighed and turned his mental radar away from the girl's locker room. It was a habit he needed to change anyway, since he knew Bella wouldn't approve. Besides, she'd gone into the restroom to dress out today, damn it. Perhaps it was wiser of her to do so—Edward didn't know how he'd react if he saw day-old bruises on her back.
Come outside, the voice insisted. I need to speak with you.
Edward whispered a quick explanation to Emmett who, other than a deliberate twitch of his thumb, gave no indication he heard anything. Polite as ever, Edward excused himself from Mrs. Goff's Spanish lesson (the woman had an atrocious accent, but she had a great love for the language and a kind heart). Emmett's eyes followed Edward out the door, wondering if he would need to go outside, too.
"Yes?" Edward said when he reached the windowless side of the building, more than a little annoyed. There was no reason to summon him from class unless an actual response was required.
"I owe you an apology," Jasper said, standing up straight. He wasn't expecting a response—he just wanted to be a man about this.
Edward's eyebrows lifted in astonishment (both of them, even).
"Not just about what happened at lunch," Jasper continued. "Alice and I had a discussion afterward. I've been hard on you about your relationship with the girl because I've been under the misapprehension that you take all the action and she simply reacts. It was a foolish thing to assume, given how tenacious she is in conversation, but it's what I thought because…"
"Because she's just a human," Edward plucked from his brother's mind, "and I'm—"
"Elevated," Jasper finished, trying to be diplomatic. "Understand, I don't think poorly of her compared to other humans, or even compared to you. This is a complicated situation, and I thought pressuring you to take control would simplify it."
"But you no longer feel that way?" Edward surmised.
"Not if the Swan girl—Bella," he corrected himself, "was able to ascertain what we are without being told. Alice thinks Bella is the relentless type, or that she's possibly seen a vampire before. Personally, I'm wondering if we're not all at fault for being incautious." Jasper sighed to himself, unable to help worrying. "Are you sure no one else suspects us?"
"You mean besides the elders of the Quileute tribe who don't trust Carlisle to provide medical care? Or whichever of their young take the old stories seriously?" Edward reminded his brother. "No, not that I've noticed."
Jasper hissed softly. Damn Carlisle for bringing us here. Why did he do it? Why?
"This is sounding less and less like an apology," Edward grumbled, "and more like a round of The Blame Game. I have to get back to class."
"I'm sorry," Jasper said quickly, and meant it. "I'm sorry I've been an ass with you, especially today. I may not agree with how you've gone about things, but I suppose you've done the best you can under the circumstances. She seems to be handling this very well and with the utmost discretion, so I'm willing to give your way a chance."
"I appreciate that," Edward nodded, turning to leave.
"So when are you going to do it?" Jasper asked.
Edward halted. "Excuse me?"
"Turn her, of course. Isn't that the point of giving her all the details about our bodies? So she knows what she's getting into?" Jasper tilted his head, soaking in his brother's sudden state of dread, conflict, even anger. It was a direct contrast to the elation of Edward's aura earlier in the day, when he was with the girl. Jasper understood why Edward wouldn't want unpleasant reminders at a time like this, in the courting phase. "I'm sure Carlisle wouldn't mind taking the reins, if her flavor is too overpowering for you. After four creations without a single accidental death, I'd say he qualifies as an old pro at it. He didn't even need preparation time with Emmett." Maria was never that good.
"Carlisle swore he'd never turn another person," Edward reminded Jasper.
"I'm sure he did, right after Rosalie cursed him for changing her. And yet: Emmett. Carlisle is prone to justification when it comes to pairing off, so I'm certain he'll make an exception for you."
Edward took too long trying to formulate a response to this.
"You are going to turn her, aren't you?" Jasper said, though he meant it as a rhetorical question. "It's the law."
"The law is not specific as to when that needs to take place," Edward said carefully, attempting to control his temper.
"Are you suggesting there's a grace period?" Jasper asked, finding himself tempted to laugh, of all things, even though there was nothing funny about this. "I'm sure Carlisle can tell you from personal experience: there's not. At least not in Europe. Besides, Alice has seen it happening fairly soon."
"How soon?" Edward wondered. 'Soon' had different meanings to different vampires. Even in Europe.
"She said Bella looks the same age she is now."
"Then Alice must not want to live in Forks much longer." Edward said brusquely. "If she thinks we can turn the police chief's underage daughter and not have immediate, highly public consequences to deal with, she needs her vision checked."
"Touché." Jasper eyed Edward's features, wondering why the boy bothered trying to conceal his rebellious emotions with a calm face. "But it has to happen eventually."
Edward, Emmett's voice boomed in his head. Mrs. Goff is about to send someone to look for you, and I don't think she wants to send me.
"My absence has been noticed," Edward relayed, giving no other farewell.
I'm not trying to rain on your parade. I want you to enjoy being in love, if you possibly can, Jasper projected at Edward's retreating form. But you need to tell Carlisle and Esme what's going on yourself, and you need to come to a decision about changing this girl. Bella Swan cannot be the only adult in your relationship.
"So," Bella asked Edward as they sat in his car outside her house after school, "you call yourselves 'vegetarians'?"
All the way home from school and for the last hour spent sitting in this car, there had been questions and explanations. Some things Edward preferred not to discuss just yet, but for the most part, he only hesitated long enough to push Jasper's admonitions from his mind. "Carlisle does. Because we only feed on animal blood instead of our natural food source."
"But animals aren't vegetables."
"I know."
"I mean, if you play a game of 20 Questions, the second one to get out of the way is 'Animal, Mineral, or Vegetable.'" (The first was 'Person, Place, or Thing.' Or, if you played with Renee, the first question was 'Have You Seen That Whatchamacallit I Lost, I Swear I Just Had It Yesterday.')
"Most of us are getting sick of using that label when we're in conversation with other vampires," Edward admitted. "We have to explain what it means every time we meet someone new, since no actual vegetables are involved. I remember one in particular thought it meant we only fed on people in a vegetative state, with no higher brain function." He was referring to a Czech vampire named Boleslav, who promptly helped himself to a long-term coma patient. Not only did Carlisle have to cover up the cause of death, but Edward had to explain to his increasingly desperate matchmaking sister and mother that he wasn't gay. And he had to arrange and pay for Boleslav's return trip to Prague, since Alice hadn't predicted her failure and refused to take responsibility for it. "After we've explained the concept, most of our kind invariably find the term just as silly and misleading as you do."
"So why do you still use it?"
"When we're having a conversation that humans are likely to overhear, or when a human asks us a direct question about our diet, it's easier to say we're vegetarian than to say we have some obscure food allergy. We're already strange enough without being referred to as the 'weird allergy people.'"
"Okay, so it's a term of convenience. What would you rather be called?"
"Lately a few of us have been toying with the term 'humanitarian.'"
"That makes you sound like an animal rights activist, in context."
"In a way that's exactly what we are, from a certain point of view."
Bella felt a little offended, knowing that some part of Edward saw her as an animal. Her grandfather's parents had been considered animals, and they were extremely lucky to escape genocide in their native Germany. But Edward didn't mean it that way, so she thought it best not to get too sensitive.
"Does your family always think in terms of a collective?" she asked instead. "You say 'we' a lot."
"Not always," Edward smiled. This girl's observations were always keen, but now that she knew the truth, the pressure to keep his secret was off, so he could relax and just enjoy this facet of her personality. "There are lots of different relationship dynamics going on in our family. Parents versus children, male versus female, couples, age differences, college rivalries, politics, football grudges…there's a lot of room for varied opinions, but also plenty of opportunity for allied thinking."
"Oh god," Bella sighed. "It sounds like an episode of Survivor or Big Brother or something."
"Sometimes it feels that way," Edward sighed too. Especially lately.
"So," Bella wondered, "what kind of cool stuff can your family do besides the occasional hive mind?"
"I can read Sanskrit," Edward deadpanned. "My mother paints landscapes on the heads of pins. Emmett graduated from fiddling school in Montana."
"No, I meant…well, actually, that is pretty cool," Bella decided. "Fiddling school? Really?"
"Oh, he's quite accomplished. But you meant supernatural stuff," Edward finished for her. "You already know I'm fast. And strong. I can also see in the dark."
"That's useful," Bella replied, "if you ever take up cat-burglary or become a ninja. I know you're stealthy."
"I used to think so," Edward smiled, "until your traps."
"Do you turn into bats?"
"Certainly not," Edward assured her. "Other than an occasional hairstyle and wardrobe change, I've looked exactly like this for decades."
"I can't decide if that's exciting," Bella mused, "or boring."
"Definitely boring," Edward confirmed. "I would love to get just a little older. Most of us would, if only so we could give up high school. But we're stuck with what we've got. The only way Alice can have long hair is if she gets some donated and sews it into her real hair. But she won't do it, because she says it's unfair to cancer patients."
"Why doesn't she just buy some hair?" Bella suggested. In the back of her head, she remembered a girl in Phoenix who, upon being rudely questioned, retorted, Bitch, this is my hair—I have the receipt. "There's bound to be a hair salon in Seattle that specializes in hair extensions. They can glue it right in."
Edward blinked several times. Why hadn't Alice ever done this before? It wasn't like hair extensions were limited to the black community—weren't movies constantly starring young and old actresses of every possible ethnicity with hair pieces and extensions? "Do me a favor," he said. "If and when you ever finally talk to her, suggest it to her."
"What's she like?" Bella wondered. Of all the Cullen children, Alice looked like she'd be the most approachable if she wasn't trying so hard to look aloof and clannish. In fact, Edward was the only one who knew that Alice secretly believed her family loyalty held her back from taking an active part in the humanity she craved.
"Energetic," he answered. "Friendly. Nosy. Obsessed with fashion. Tends to space out every once in a while. And she's left-handed."
"I noticed you're right-handed," Bella remarked, "but I don't get why. You said earlier that with the change comes drastically improved motor skills and strength. So why would one hand be weaker than the other? Wouldn't you all be ambidextrous?"
"I think it's a holdover from our humanity," Edward postulated. "Alice can do everything right-handed, but she prefers to use her left. She's also left-eye dominant. Quite the little oddball, that one."
"Does she read minds like you?"
"No, she's got her own special quirks."
"Time travel?"
"Fortune telling."
"Seriously?"
"Well, it's true, but we don't always take it seriously."
"Tarot cards and tea leaves?"
"Only when she volunteers at Halloween carnivals. She's a psychic. Mostly visual, but occasionally audio, too. Sometimes she sees major events, sometimes just small stuff."
"Did she see me coming?"
"Not even close." Half the time she still couldn't see Bella going, even when she made an effort. "We didn't find out you were moving to Forks until Chief Swan started spreading the news himself."
Not a consistent psychic, Bella thought to herself. Maybe that's a good thing.
"Her husband is gifted, too," Edward said. "An empath."
"You mean Jasper? They're married?" Bella gaped.
Edward smiled. "Is that strange?"
Bella closed her jaw. "I keep forgetting they probably aren't as young as they look."
"I just find it funny that their marriage surprises you more than their abilities."
"Well I already know one creature of the night with superpowers, but I've never met a high school junior with a husband."
"It is pretty rare these days, so I'll give you that one. Rosalie and Emmett are married, too."
"But they're all on record as siblings, aren't they? How is that legal?"
"They aren't married in the state of Washington yet…well, no I take that back. They are, but that's for an Emmett and Rosalie McCarty who had a ceremony sixty-eight years ago. At present, he's an adopted son and she's a former foster child, both of whom are now eighteen. They'll probably have another wedding in a few years. It will be her fifteenth ceremony that I know of."
Bella made a hilariously confused face. "Is that part of your cover or something?"
"Not really. Weddings are just Rosalie's hobby." This was partially true. Weddings were an extension of Rosalie's real hobby: being the center of attention.
"Do she and Emmett have special abilities, too?"
"Only if you count swearing as a special ability," Edward smirked.
"Can any of you fly?" Bella wondered, thinking of one of her favorite dreams.
"Not without a plane or helicopter," Edward answered. "I still haven't tried hang-gliding."
"Why not?" Bella wondered. He seemed damn near indestructible. Maybe he was too heavy?
"You're supposed to fly in sunny weather, which I tend to avoid," he said lightly. "And I can't fly in cloudy skies."
"Because…" Bella prodded.
"Same reason a human can't," Edward said simply. "Lightning."
"Hmm," Bella murmured, filing that one away.
"What about you?" Edward asked. "Any special skills up your sleeve? Aside from throwing me completely off-kilter?" And being impervious to mind-reading. And screwing up Alice's psychic radar. Wow, this girl is pretty gifted, actually.
"Mad science, sense of smell, guilt trips…you pretty much know it all by now," Bella assured him. "There's this one other thing I could show you, but not without raiding Charlie's liquor cabinet."
Edward lifted an eyebrow. He was from a bygone era, in which respectable women didn't drink liquor or beer, at least not in public, and wine or champagne were only meant to be consumed when the occasion warranted it. But he was also Irish-American by birth and the adopted son of an Irish Londoner, so alcohol itself wasn't a cultural evil to him. "A bar trick?"
"No," Bella said. "It's this useless thing my grandmother taught me to do. Called it a 'family tradition.' She said if she ever found herself penniless, she could always go back to her old job at the circus."
"Again with the circus jokes," Edward tutted. "Last time Phil was the human canon ball. Is your mother a sword-swallower, too?"
"No, seriously," Bella assured him. "My grandmother spent a year with a traveling circus before she met my grandfather. I'm totally part-carney."
"Glass bottle juggling?" Edward teased.
"Drunken lion taming," Bella replied, winking.
"Really?"
"No."
"Damn, I'd have liked to see that."
"Sorry, the circus life isn't for me."
"Can I ask you a serious question now?"
"Go for it," Bella grinned.
"How can you possibly be comfortable with any of this?" Any other human with the sense God gave a dog would be suffering from a nervous breakdown at the very least. "Me, my family, what I am, what I eat…how?"
"I wasn't at first," she admitted. "I had some time to think about it, and what it would mean. And I did consider running off to my mom in Florida."
"What changed your mind? Was it…the other night, in Port Angeles?"
"No. My mind was made up by then."
"Something your mother said?"
Bella blushed, making Edward's curiosity flare. "A little. But even before that."
"Please tell me."
"It was Sunday," Bella reflected, looking out the window at her house. "After we took Izzy back to Mark's house."
"I don't follow."
"Mark came home early," Bella explained. "He broke up with his girlfriend, so he wanted his dog back for company. Charlie and I went together, trying to cheer him up, although Charlie was just acting weird about it the whole time, like he wanted me to be there but at the same time he didn't." She shook her head, wondering why her father had spent so much of the visit watching her like a hawk every time she and Mark said two words to each other. Men. "Anyway, we were only gone for a couple of hours in the morning, and we came home so I could make lunch. My dad opened the door, and I noticed the smell."
"Smell?" Edward repeated, his voice severe.
"Gas."
Edward suppressed an instinctive growl. Funny thing about vampires: they lost many human behaviors, like excessive blinking, but for no apparent reason whatsoever they gained animal ones. It sort of made sense for those rare vampires who, like the Cullens, hunted animals and might pick up that animal behavior over time, but traditional feeders didn't generally spend their time observing animals, so there was no known cause for why they did things like hissing at interlopers and growling like a bunch of feral cats when something pissed them off.
The thought of Bella smelling gas in her house really pissed Edward off.
"Charlie couldn't smell it, because our kitchen is at the other end of the house," Bella continued, "but I could tell right away. We stayed outside and called the utility company, and they dispatched an emergency technician. Turns out there was a crack in the gas connection in back of the stove." She sighed and sagged in her seat. "If I'd gone in there to cook, half the kitchen might have blown up, and me along with it."
Slowly, Edward placed his hand over Bella's. It was so warm. He could feel blood pulsing through the veins threading under her skin. "I'm glad you're safe."
"Me, too," she agreed, finding his cold skin as pleasing as she had the night in Port Angeles. As a direct result of that night, she would find cool skin attractive and comforting for the rest of her natural life.
"How did the crack form?" Edward wondered, forcing himself to concentrate on the conversation. Cracks don't just happen when no one's home.
Bella shrugged. "I tripped in the kitchen that morning and bumped into the stove. That might have been it." She looked down at Edward's hand. "When the tech told us we had narrowly escaped an explosion, I realized I would have died and never seen my parents again, my old friends in Phoenix, my mother's cousins and their kids, that goofy, long-eared dog…and for some reason all of that felt secondary to the thought that I'd never see you again. I had no idea what it meant, and I still wasn't sure I could trust you, what with your bedroom intruder habit. But I knew I wanted to see you again, and it didn't matter so much that you aren't human. There are worse things than caring about someone who drinks animal blood."
"Thank you," Edward whispered, overwhelmed.
"For what?"
"For feeling that way," he told her, feeling both grateful and guilty—Bella would never feel comfortable if he told her how badly he wanted her blood, and while he knew the responsible thing to do would be to tell her anyway and hope for the best, the selfish bastard in him wanted to enjoy the feeling of her love and care for a little while longer.
He cocked his head to one side, listening to the distinct sound of an old Crown Victoria. "I should go, unless you don't mind your father meeting me."
Bella thought about this. She wasn't minutely ashamed of being with Edward, and she wasn't exactly afraid to tell her father she had a boyfriend, if that's what you could call whatever this was. She just wanted to keep it to herself for a little while, a delightful secret to ponder on her own before Charlie did the typical dad thing and pissed on it. "Not today, I think."
"As you wish," Edward nodded. He wondered what Jasper would think about this, if he would call Bella childish for not telling her parent she was seeing someone. But then, Bella wasn't protecting her family secret from an outsider. Edward highly doubted Jasper, or anyone else in his family, would want Bella to be equally as candid with her parents as Edward was expected to be with his.
"Can you just wait one minute while I get you something?" Bella requested. At Edward's nod, she dashed into the house. Edward, who wasn't a particularly patient person when he didn't have something else to occupy his attention, sucked in some fresh air and tried not to think about the way his passenger seat smelled—it was the equivalent to a human smelling warm chocolate chip cookies or French fries in their car after the food had been taken away. Maybe it wasn't such a stress relief, having Bella in the know; without the constant fear of accidentally revealing his secret, Edward didn't have as much mental exertion to distract him from her scent. He hastily grabbed a blank sheet of paper and a bendy straw from his glove compartment; he'd turned it into a pinwheel by the time Bella returned.
"You changed your shirt?" he noticed.
"I just wanted to give you something," she smiled, "so the sock won't be lonely."
Bella dropped the shirt she'd been wearing into Edward's passenger seat, laughing as he thanked her, asked her to call later, and pulled away.
Edward sped toward home, intent on two things: telling his parents the truth about Bella Swan, and questioning Rosalie and Jasper about the gas leak. Bella's shirt remained tightly gripped in his hand.
In the kitchen, Bella noticed a note on the table that she didn't remember seeing when she left for school in the morning.
Isabella,
I'll bring home pizza for dinner. I'm sure you're much too tired to cook. Please keep your evening free. We have plans tonight.
Love,
Dad
Chief Charlie Swan did not tolerate certain things:
He did not tolerate hoodlums.
He did not tolerate sneaking out at night.
He most definitely did not tolerate drugs.
Any boy who was skulking about the neighborhood at two in the morning was most likely a hoodlum. And not only was he sneaking out, the kid got Charlie's own daughter to sneak out, too. Possibly even to do drugs.
But Charlie was not quite as reactionary as Bella had always been told (by her even more reactionary mother). Much like Bella, he had the ability to wait and think about what was in front of him. Patrol cops made snap judgments—Charlie was the Chief. He could put together seemingly meaningless details if he thought long enough about them. Like the fact that Bella hadn't taken off her gloves when she came inside. Normally those things came off so fast that he'd sometimes pretend to duck, as if she might send them flying at his head. And something bothered him when Bella said she fell. He didn't doubt it was likely, but if she scraped up her palms trying to break her fall, why would she cover them up with gloves? Even before this, Bella had been behaving as though she anticipated a need to act defensively, asking absurd questions and begging for a Taser. She'd certainly gone out with Jessica last night, but they didn't come home together. When she arrived, she looked absolutely terrible when she walked in the door. And in spite of telling him she was going to bed early, he knew Bella stayed awake. Clacking away on that keyboard of hers wasn't as silent an activity as she'd hoped.
Charlie wondered who she met, how long they were out there, and if they'd gone anywhere else. He didn't have time to go downstairs and check—he only woke up a minute before she came back inside, and his bedroom was at the back of the house. The only part of their conversation he heard was Bella's laughter. Well, that and her footsteps. She'd come in barefoot, so she probably hadn't gone anywhere. He didn't hear a car engine, either. Perhaps she was with someone who lived in walking distance.
Charlie left for work before Bella woke up for school Tuesday morning. Her sleeping in did not surprise him—she slept so little lately that it was a wonder she didn't collapse from exhaustion in the middle of school. He was very pleased, as he stood on his front porch, not to find ashes, roach clips, bits of drug balloons, or any of the other things he'd long ago learned to search for when drug use was suspected. Or worse: condom wrappers.
It's the little things that start the day off right, he thought wryly.
It was only moments later that he mentally smacked himself for a) suspecting his daughter of teen delinquency when she'd done nothing that was actually wrong, b) thinking condoms were a bad thing in this day and age, and c) believing for one second that Bella was dumb enough to bring drugs to the house when she regularly babysat a drug dog.
On a whim (the kind of instinctive whim that usually resulted in some petty criminal getting caught red-handed) Charlie circled his block before heading to the main thoroughfare out of the aging subdivision. Most of his neighbors had lived in the same houses for at least a generation, though a few had moved in only within the last five years, relocating from somewhere else in town. It was safe to say that, barring the occasional new vehicle someone bought for a son or daughter, Charlie knew every car on his block and at which house each one belonged.
So a silver Volvo parked in front of the vacant Johannsen place stood out.
485-KJW. Gotcha.
Edward stared after the police cruiser, wondering at the vague sense of satisfaction he could only just make out in Charlie's mind. Not being able to clearly hear the Chief's thoughts would eventually become a problem, Edward decided, but for now there was nothing he could do about it. He waited a few extra minutes until the blurred thought vanished, then started his car and drove to Bella's house.
Chief Swan ran the plate number as soon as he pulled up to the coffee shop to place his regular order. When the Volvo came back as Dr. Cullen's vehicle, one of seven, there he stopped.
Why, Charlie asked himself, does the Quileute tribal council have it in for the Cullen family?
He'd certainly wondered about this before, but until now, he'd always carried preconceived opinions about the value of the answer. Surely there was nothing Billy or the other council members could say about it that would make one bit of rational sense. At least, that had always been Charlie's take on it. Even Harry Clearwater made it clear that he didn't support the council's final ruling, though he'd never actually said what that ruling had been based on. No one had. Every time Charlie tried to get an answer, he was told it was none of his business and certainly not within his jurisdiction.
Time to make a decision. It was only a small one, but it didn't come lightly. Any cop could spend his whole day running plates on every vehicle on the road to make sure they were "properly registered," but technically it was illegal for any peace officer, regardless of rank, to use a state or national database to run someone's personal identification without probable cause. The system was monitored nowadays, so he couldn't just sneak a peek under the radar and hope no one noticed. If he wanted to run a background check on someone, he either had to obtain their explicit permission, have a good excuse to make a traffic stop, or use one of those websites that charges $29.95 per background or $100 for a slew of them. Technically, at least two of the Cullen children were minors. That opened up a whole world of impropriety issues and civil rights violations. Even if he didn't get caught and sued, he still had no way to prove whatever was wrong with Bella was even related to the Cullens. Any district attorney worth his county paycheck would tell him that if all he had was a car parked in an empty driveway around the corner, he had nothing to make a case out of, not even a crime.
Chief Swan chose not to prematurely take a course of action that could ruin his career. But that didn't stop Charlie from spending his entire day worrying about his daughter. When he went to the elementary school with his poor shmoe rookie dressed as McGruff the Crime Dog, he worried. (He also wondered why the Cullens didn't adopt young children rather than all these teenagers.) He even made a point of cruising his neighborhood on the pretense of maintaining visibility. He halfway expected to find Bella's truck still parked in the driveway, so seeing it there wasn't what bothered him. However, a quick check inside revealed she wasn't in the house—he would have understood her staying home to sleep, but she was just gone, as was her backpack. Slow down, Charlie, he told himself, even as he hastily scribbled a note asking her to stay home so he could, in essence, interrogate her, gas prices are sky high—maybe she's carpooling…with a Cullen kid who lives miles out of town? A follow-up drive to the high school to schedule an upcoming visit from Izzy the Drug Sniffer revealed that Bella had, in fact, arrived at school, and had not skipped any of her classes so far. She'd never skipped a single class, except for the day she had her fainting spell and went home early. Her grades were good, and no teacher had a single word of complaint against her (except for Bob Banner the biology teacher, but that guy was an asshole). Bella Swan, according to her permanent record, was a Good Girl.
It did bother her dad, though, that she appeared to have packed half of her clothes into suitcases. Maybe she was too unhappy to stay in Forks after all.
It took Charlie most of the day to see the bigger picture. Bella had been worried about something, and perhaps her fears had been realized. But last night she still made it home. What's more, whoever had visited in the middle of the night made her laugh. Whereas before she'd been jumping at little sounds, now she seemed to feel safe enough to go outside after dark. She didn't really even go anywhere that he knew of—she probably stayed on the porch for a little while and came right back inside. She went to school with someone rather than alone, for a change. And that evening, when she threw together a salad to go with Charlie's carryout pizza, she even hummed. And not just any old humming, but Marvin Goddamn Gaye.
Oh hell, Charlie sighed to himself, recognizing the chorus to "Let's Get it On." She's not in trouble, I am. She's in love. I can't believe Renee was right. Oh god, does that mean I have to have a sex talk with my daughter? I'm not ready for that! Is she ready for that? She's seventeen—maybe she's past that. Please, for the love of Jesus, let Renee have already conducted that conversation with her…
With that in mind, Charlie set the pizzas on the table, leaned against the kitchen counter, and cleared his throat.
"Hi, Dad," Bella called over her shoulder. God, why did she have to sound so cheerful?
"It's Tuesday."
"Um," Bella replied. "Happy Tuesday?"
"Aren't you going to ask me if your package has arrived?"
"Package?"
Charlie rolled his eyes. "It's been less than a week. Don't tell me you already forgot."
Bella stood up straight and turned around. She met her father's eyes, but said nothing. Her expression, Charlie decided, was not one of confusion exactly, but it seemed guarded. He'd seen it hundreds of times whenever he pulled someone over who invariably had something to hide, whether it was unpaid speeding tickets or a joint in their pocket.
Slowly, Charlie extracted something from his Forks PD equipment bag. "This arrived at my office for you today."
It looked like a cell phone. A really cheap cell phone.
"Wow," Bella managed to say. "Finally."
She looks a little more disappointed than I was expecting. He moved closer. "See, the electrodes are here. This is your safety switch, and this is the trigger. I paid a little extra and got you the model that discharges 4.5 million volts."
Bella stared at it for a few seconds before reaching over and gingerly plucking the little device from her father's hand.
Do I still need this?
Thinking about the look on Rosalie's face in the cafeteria (a look some of her friends back home referred to as "mad doggin'" or "bitch, I'ma kill you"), Bella recalled Edward mentioning an aversion to lightning. And though she hoped to forget it, she'd also been attacked by a human predator just last night, and only narrowly escaped. She couldn't expect Edward to be her twenty-four-hour bodyguard.
Bella decided that maybe she did want to hang on to it. Just in case.
"Thanks," she said quietly, closing her fist around it.
"Of course, you still have to test it out on someone," Charlie reminded her, watching her all the time.
Her eyes widened as she remembered that part of the deal. "Who?"
"My rookie will be waiting at the station after supper."
"Dad." Bella's scandalized voice was almost amusing to Charlie. "That's your idea of father-daughter bonding? Electrocuting an innocent man?"
"We had an agreement, Bella. You aren't going back on it now," he said firmly. "Besides, I happen to know he had to use a Taser on another cadet at the academy. This is part of being a cop."
"But I don't want to hurt a cop," Bella protested. "You know I can't live with that kind of guilt."
"The animal shelter is too far away, and I don't have any detainees or arrestees right now," Charlie explained, mentally adding though I might go find one at a certain doctor's house. "So unless one of the guys on duty brings in someone who's willing to do anything to get out of an arrest, you're tazing my rookie tonight."
"But Dad—"
"Or maybe you'd rather stay home and talk about what you were doing outside in the middle of the night," Charlie said knowingly.
Bella promptly shut the hell up and went back to tossing salad.
"I want to trust you," Charlie said, dropping his bag on the dryer and sitting down in his usual chair.
"Have I given you reason not to?" Bella asked.
"You've been acting strange lately, and you won't talk to me about it. At the very least, that's cause for concern."
"I've had a lot on my mind and I needed to clear my head. Just because I want privacy and some fresh air doesn't mean you need to worry about me."
"I'm your dad. I don't need a reason to worry about you."
"Mom never got worried when I went outside at night to sit in a lawn chair in our own backyard." Primarily because Renee was too busy making love to notice she'd woken her daughter up again.
"I would have worried about you."
Bella didn't look at her father. "I know." That's why I love you.
"The truth, Isabella."
She sighed and looked at the wall, wondering what she'd gotten herself into, if the rest of her life would be spent having guarded conversations.
Brought the salad and dinner plates to the table.
Showed Charlie her hands. He would have noticed the greenish bruises anyway once she started eating.
He started to get up, to go to her, but she lifted her hands higher, palms forward. "Don't. Please. I'm fine."
"When," Charlie asked immediately, slowly sitting back down, his eyes roving over his only child, searching for defensive wounds, bruises, anything.
Bella retrieved two forks and sat down. "Yesterday, in Port Angeles."
"Someone you know?"
"No."
"Did he—?"
"I fought him, and someone drove up and scared him away."
Thank you, Lord. "Your pepper spray?"
"Useless."
"Where the hell were your friends?"
"Still at the store. I went for a walk and got lost. It was my own stupid fault."
"Damn it…I know you didn't call the cops. They'd have notified me."
"There was no point. I got mugged. It happens."
Muggers grabbed a purse and took off; they didn't stick around to rough you up for the hell of it. Charlie sighed, knowing Bella wasn't the only victimized girl in the world to protect her mind by minimizing the crime. "Why didn't you call me?"
"Because I was okay."
"This is not 'okay.' You're hurt."
"I knew you'd just worry and make a big fuss, and I couldn't deal with it."
"Worry, yes. Fuss, no. Do not confuse me with Renee. You're supposed to tell me when something bad happens, and I'm supposed to protect you."
She shook her head. "You can't protect me from something that's already happened."
"Can you give me a description of him, at least?"
"Please, stop," Bella quavered. She knew where he'd go with this next, and so help her, she could not handle looking at mug shots. "It's over. I'm safe. I know better. Don't make me talk about it anymore."
Charlie looked at her; her eyes had quickly turned puffy and red, clearly on the verge of tears. Her explanation didn't actually explain why she'd been behaving so strangely before the Port Angeles trip, but then again, maybe it did. Maybe she just had a more realistic view of life in small-town Washington than he did. "Okay." He hesitated, then served her a slice of pizza. "Just please, in the future—"
"I know, Dad."
"We can talk about your night visitor later."
Bella decided she didn't have the energy to be worried all night about when Charlie was planning to ambush her with invasive questions. Falling in love was nice; keeping a deadly secret from her father was not. She set her salad fork down on the table and stared at her food. "Let's just get it over with so I can finish eating and do my homework."
Charlie knew a dozen ways to ask questions. He considered his favorite: ask her misleading questions about the stuff he did know to see if he'd catch her in a lie, thus tricking her into thinking he knew everything so she'd be honest about what he didn't know. But now was not the time to be a cop. It had been years since Charlie had seen his daughter this close to bawling, and he couldn't say he blamed her.
"Did you go anywhere?"
"No." Where would she even go? There was nothing to do in Forks in the middle of the night.
Charlie rubbed his face with one hand. "Promise me you weren't doing anything illegal or stupid, and that you aren't going to make a habit of late night porch visits, and I'll let it go until you're ready to tell me more. And for god's sake, don't go outside barefoot in freezing weather anymore."
Bella nodded, too surprised to give more of an answer.
"No more arguments about tonight either, young lady. You're practicing with that Taser even if you have to use it on me."
At this, Bella cracked a weary smile. "For that, we should charge admission."
"Whole town'd show up," Charlie grinned. "We'd have a nice addition to your college fund." Bouncing back. That's my girl.
"So Alice," Emmett said lazily, constructing a tower of Lincoln Logs to use with his impromptu Rube Goldberg device, "what's Bella up to tonight?"
Emmett didn't actually care what the human was doing—she was an oddity, a cause for upheaval and change in the house. He'd been sufficiently chastised enough to be glad she was okay after her attack, but other than that, there was no real curiosity about her personality, interests, or activities. There was plenty of time for that later, when she joined the family and got over the newborn period, and by then she would develop new interests anyway. He was only asking because Edward was dying to do the same, and he knew Edward felt he couldn't ask without coming off as obsessive. To Emmett, this was like a little gift he could give his brother.
Alice paused her mending (normally she would have thrown the shirt out, but Jasper claimed it was his favorite, and when someone makes the effort to keep the same shirt for forty-one years, you don't just toss it). For a full five seconds, she appeared to be completely engrossed by the wood grain on the floor. "Damned if I know," she finally shrugged, disappointing one brother and inciting curiosity in the other. "I caught a glimpse of dinner with her father, but after that her future went blank again."
"Doesn't that bother you?" Emmett wondered.
"Oh, it makes me grind my teeth. But it's better than when her future goes totally batshit."
"In what way is it better?" Edward demanded. "She could be doing anything! She could be dying or getting into trouble—"
"Or cutting her hair!" Alice teased him.
"Or getting high behind the truck stop," Emmett joined in.
"Or dishing out vigilante justice, ninja style," Alice giggled.
"Or masturbating!" Emmett crowed.
"Oh that is it!" Edward snarled, just before he launched himself at his enormous, laughing brother, sending Lincoln Logs scattering everywhere.
"So what if she is?" Alice said breezily, returning to her needle and thread. "There's nothing wrong with it. She could probably use the stress relief. At least you can be reasonably sure she's thinking about you."
Edward, who was busy trying to get his arms around Emmett's neck, grunted, "It's the middle of the day."
"Not to be nitpicky," Alice said, "but the middle of the day was hours ago. What difference does it make what time it is?"
"I think our brother," Emmett puffed, getting a grip on Edward's armpit and using it to twist him upside down, "is concerned that she's doing it while people are awake."
"No," Alice sighed, finishing up her last stitch and biting off the excess thread. "I think it's that she might be doing it at all. He's never done it."
"But everybody does it," Emmett argued, wincing in pain when Edward managed to yank his foot 90 degrees in the wrong direction. "Our boy needs to stop demonizing a perfectly natural thing and just alleviate his tension already."
"You say that like sexual frustration is my only problem," Edward groaned. "She hasn't suddenly stopped smelling delicious." Today…good god but she smelled so good today.
"Well it's at least half the problem, and you're not doing anything about it." Emmett tried using an old hillbilly wrasslin' move. It failed. "I do it all the time. Sometimes Rosalie and I even—"
"Finish that sentence," Rosalie hissed from the computer station, "and I swear to god, we won't be doing it again." She was already in a bad mood, what with Edward accusing her and Jasper of sabotaging Bella's stove while he was out of town. They both understood why he felt the need to ask, but they were still offended by him asking.
"But you can't argue that we haven't all done it," Alice replied to her sister. "Especially you. This weekend while Emmett and Edward were away, Esme and I heard you from all the way out in the back yard."
"I'd prefer you leave me out of this conversation," Rosalie growled, saving her file before she closed it.
"Oh, don't be as big of a prude as Edward," Alice jibed.
"I can personally attest," Emmett shouted, "that she is definitely not a prude."
"You've never been shy, either," Alice recalled, eyeballing her sister. "What gives?"
"I'd rather not be part of a sexual discussion," she answered, standing swiftly, "that includes Edward or his human girlfriend diddling themselves."
"Girls diddle," Emmett corrected her (very loudly). "Guys manhandle."
"I thought they jerked," Alice frowned. "Or is it jacking? There's so much slang for it nowadays."
"Breaking the spitting llama," Emmett volunteered, abruptly releasing Edward's arm and shoving him toward the sofa. He watched his wife's backside sway as she left the room in disgust.
"Wrangling the bucking bronco," Jasper joined in, speeding down the stairs now that he found something to contribute to the conversation.
"Having a one-night-stand with the sperm whale," Alice laughed.
"Tuning the organ!"
"Scalpin' the pud!"
"Burping the leafless palm trunk!"
"Spanking the brass monkey!"
"Unloading wood!"
"Polishing your trophy!"
"Whackin' the love rifle!"
"Boxing with Ol' Faithful!"
"Shaking the coconut milk of love from the sex stick."
"Esme? What the fuck?"
"Oh god, let's get the hell out of here!"
"Who's the prude now, kids?"
The Forks PD rookie (whose name was actually Officer Ryan) was staring at his plate of food in the diner, willing himself not to barf all over it. Today had already been singularly awful, what with spending two hours in the McGruff suit, which not only made March in Washington feel like August in the Sudan, but apparently had not been washed since the start of the millennium. Then a box came in the mail, and next thing he knew the chief was calling him into the office for a "little chat." Ryan was a little afraid to eat anything, lest his imminent electrocution render him unable to control his gag reflex or other bodily functions. Please, God, he prayed, don't let me shit myself.
Fortunately for him, Izzy was on duty today. She picked up the trail of something that smelled alarming to her nose, and for once it wasn't lovesick vampire. Mark, who was glad to see his dog performing her task so enthusiastically, followed her to an ugly little residence in a trailer park on the west side of town. There he found three muscular men with brown complexions, no shirts, and (curiously) Crisco-covered skin. They were beating the ever-loving shit out of four scruffy-looking white men.
Two back-up units, two calls to the county Crime Scene Unit, and two hours later, all seven men were sitting in the Forks City Jail. The white guys clammed up tight, but the others demanded to give their statements immediately, insisting that they were performing a public service by putting an end to the local meth lab.
When Charlie arrived at the station, Bella in tow, he did something you could only get away with in the movies, or with people who thought things worked like they did in the movies.
"I wouldn't normally say this," Charlie began, sitting in the interrogation room with the young man he'd often seen fishing alone as a child, "but you've got rights. I think you might want a lawyer, Sam."
"I think you're going to be sending me home," Sam grunted, "unless you want trouble with the council."
Chief Swan had to try very hard not to roll his eyes. "You don't get immunity because of where you live. There's only one council who can make trouble for me, and that's the Forks City Council. If you tear up some drug dealers on tribal land and your council decides to let it go, that's up to them, but this is my jurisdiction."
"I brought down four drug pushers who do as much damage to your young people as they do to mine, and this is the thanks I get?"
"Look," Charlie said, "I understand. Hell, if I could I'd give you a medal. But my officer witnessed you committing a crime. Justified or not, we can't just ignore it."
The large, muscle-bound man, who had a responsibility to his tribe but also had a pressing need not to acquire a criminal record, eyed Charlie. "What are you getting at, Chief?" He always could smell an under-the-table deal from a mile away.
Charlie appreciated not having to waste any time. "Those assholes are never going to testify in their own defense, and no public defender worth a shit is going to want them on the stand. I'll tell Mark to leave out your vigilante punishment in his report and list you all as witnesses if you do me a favor."
Sam paled a little when Chief Swan explained what he wanted, and asked to speak to Jared and Paul first. They may have been stronger than most people, but they were still made of flesh and blood, and they knew this wasn't going to be pleasant. But it was better to go through pain and suffering than to bring dishonor to the whole of the Quileute tribe.
Nobody could say who was more surprised when Bella Swan walked into the interrogation room: her, or the man she recognized as the Cullen-hater from First Beach. Her greeting came out soft and nervous; Sam didn't bother to return it. He was too busy trying to figure out why she smelled like she'd drenched herself in whore perfume. So it was that a harried, exhausted, anxiety-ridden Bella spent her evening "shocking the dogs."
That night, she spent a quality half hour locked in her room with Silicone Freddie Prinze Jr., just trying to relieve the stress.
In a quiet corner of the forest, Edward held Bella's shirt to his nose and guiltily indulged in a little "draining of the beast" on his own.
Some of his fantasies weren't even about blood.