A/N: Just a little plot bunny that I had floating around. It started off in my head as kind of spooky but I think it ended up being a little more heartfelt. Enjoy!

I turned off the TV and headed off to bed, the old house groaning almost as much as my joints. It wasn't a cold night but the dampness of the air made my constant chill worse. I was tired. Not just for the night but in general. I was getting too old for this but this had been all I'd known. The boys down at the station had basically forced me into retirement years ago. The only reason I agreed was because of what the third doctor I went to had said.

My time was coming. I didn't know how long I had exactly but I knew it was close and that I was ready. I'd lived a good life, a life that had been long enough and by this point it was just me anyways.

I walked past the mantle. It was dusty but I'd never really been one to dust. A few years ago I finally gave up my embarrassment and put up all the pictures I wanted. I had one from my wedding day with the love of my life. She'd looked perfect in her flowy white gown, the rare sun making her glow. Well, the sun and something else that I wouldn't find out about for another few weeks. The smile on her face from that day was still enough to make my cheeks red and splotchy. She had been so beautiful. If only I'd been enough to keep her. But she left and she took the other joy of my life.

The rest of the mantle was dedicated to that other joy, the apple of my eye, my daughter. I still had pictures from when she was in grade school and showing off pigtails and a gap-toothed smile. I had one school picture for each year she was away. Then, I had a handful for the brief time I had her. Even though my ex-wife got married to someone else, it worked out and somehow got me my daughter back. She'd never been quiet about her hatred of Forks and I never really did get to the bottom of why she suddenly decided to come stay with me for the last year and a half of high school, but she did. Sometimes I wondered if it would've been better if she hadn't. If she'd stayed in Arizona or gone to Jacksonville or wherever it was her mother was heading, maybe she wouldn't have met him. Maybe I would have gotten more time with her.

I glanced with melancholy at the last picture I had of her. It was only one of two that I was in, the other being my own wedding picture. In this one she was the brown-eyed beauty in the white gown with a smile you could see for miles. I was the fool in the monkey suit walking her down the aisle to give her away. I never should have let her go.

That boy had never been anything but trouble and I still had my suspicions. Less than four hours after I'd found out he existed as something more than a classmate of my daughter's, she ran like a bat out of hell across the country down to an empty house. Maybe I should have questioned it more when she came back with him after ending up in the hospital. Then she ended up deep in the woods on the same cold fall night that him and his whole family left town, only to come back after she disappeared to God knows where to get him back. I tried to get her to see beyond him but by then I guess it was too little too late. I'd lost her. And she came to me with a diamond on her hand within a week of her high school graduation.

She'd insisted she'd still be going to college. She'd gotten into Dartmouth. She was always so smart. Before him, she was the most level-headed, responsible, intelligent young woman I'd ever met. She was incredible. And I'm not just saying that because she was my baby girl.

He'd planned something for her honeymoon. It was a surprise. He was taking my daughter to god knows where and I didn't even know where or for how long. After a week I started growing antsy. After two I started asking that family where he took her. They didn't come back when summer ended but his family told me how they'd apparently decided to go straight from wherever they were to school.

At some point an 'accident' happened while they were driving around the mountains over there in New Hampshire. The bodies had been destroyed beyond recognition but his stupid, expensive Volvo had been found wrecked in a ditch off the side of a windy mountain road. The bodies had been burned beyond identification but there was a male and a female. That picture of me and my little girl walking down the aisle is the last time I saw her.

Of course I'd had my suspicions but what could I do? The local police on the other side of the country saw it as a tragic but open-and-shut case. They said it was terrible but not uncommon. Even my friend Billy, who'd never trusted anyone from that whole damn family, told me that it was probably just an accident. Maybe the boy'd just been reckless. But I noticed the tightness in his mouth and around his eyes when he said it. His son hadn't been particularly subtle either.

And that's how I got to where I was at, alone and old in a house that held onto the ghosts of my family who'd been all too eager to leave. I'd tried dating a few times but nothing ever came of it. The closest I got to it was with my buddy Harry's wife after he'd passed from a heart attack. Eventually we realized that we were just keeping each other company and decided to go our separate ways.

I eventually got my rickety old legs up the stairs to my bedroom and fell into an unrestful sleep in my old bed. It was never restful anymore, not with the aches and pains, the coughing fits, or needing to get up a few times to relieve myself. But it was dark and it was a chance to rest my eyes.

It was during one of the rare moments when I was fully unconscious that I got sucked back to the land of the living and aware by a noise. Now, this wasn't entirely out of the ordinary. As I said, the house was old and known to settle and the woods were right there and had plenty of things that sounded in the night. I would have gone right back to sleep like always but there was something that had me on the edge. Maybe it was the air of the night itself or maybe the noise had been enough to alert me awake. Maybe it was the instincts I got from forty five years on the force. Whatever it was, it had me on alert and cautious.

"Hello," I grunted, my voice still thick with sleep. "Anyone there?" My voice was clearer that time but still a little raspy from sleep and disuse. I'd never been one for idle conversation but mostly keeping to myself these days meant that I could go a week without saying a word.

I heard what sounded like a feminine sigh and then nothing for a few beats. There was something familiar about it but it still had me on edge. Someone was in my house though and there were very few good possibilities that could come from that.

"Who's there? Show yourself," I demanded. I tried to get the old police chief authority in my voice but age had worn it down. I sounded like a weak old man even to my own years.

A few more seconds and then a figure appeared in my door.

I must be dead. It was the only conclusion that made any sense because there in my bedroom doorway was my daughter. Although she'd been dead for close to twenty years she looked exactly the same as she had then.

No, that wasn't true. She didn't look exactly the same. She hadn't aged but she did look different. Her skin was even whiter than it'd used to be. It almost glowed in the moonlight. My eyes adjusted more to the darkness and I took in more of her. Her eyes that used to be dark, just like mine, were also lighter now. Her hair was thicker and fuller. She looked like she was wearing make-up but if this was my daughter I knew that couldn't be true.

There was one simple solution: she'd come to get me.

"Dad?" she said with a lot of hesitation, like she used to when she thought she might be in trouble. Her voice had changed too. She still kind of sounded like herself but sweeter, like singing almost. She took a step further into the room with a gracefulness that she never would've managed before. She'd been such a klutz before. That was why I never questioned anything until it was too late.

"Bells?" I finally gasped out. I didn't want to break the stillness with my own harsh voice. It was like there was a spell cast over us and I didn't want to do anything that would end it and make her leave again.

"Yeah. It's me. Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," she said as though her being there was the most normal thing ever.

"That's okay. Why don't you come over here and sit with me," I suggested as I sat up in bed and patted the side next to me that had been empty more often than it'd been filled.

Her reactions were all the little things I hadn't remembered but suddenly missed so much because they were her. Her little smile that sneaked out, the quick nod of her head in agreement and to keep her eyes away, all the little things showing my brave but shy, quiet girl. She didn't blush though. I guess blushing was something I could look forward to leaving behind.

She made her way over to my bedside slowly and with that unnatural grace I was sure she loved. She sat down with just as much poise but then gasped in surprise when I put my arm around her to squeeze her tight. I hadn't meant to, but I didn't do it nearly enough when I could have so I guess I was making up for lost time.

The way she felt was different too. She'd been all skin and bones before but now she was solid and hard. Her skin had a surprising but not unexpected chill to it. I shivered slightly as the bone-deep chill I'd had worked its way out. For the first time in I couldn't remember though, I felt warm from the inside out.

"Sorry," she whispered in her new, bell-like voice as she tried to pull away. "I haven't quite warmed up from being outside. Let me go get you some more blankets. Then you should be getting back to sleep. You need your rest."

I chuckled. She was still trying to mother me. You'd think I hadn't gotten along without her with the way she tried to take care of me when she moved in. "That's okay Bells. I'm plenty warm and I don't sleep worth a damn anyways. Besides, I'm ready. I don't need to go to sleep. I'm ready to move on with you."

I felt her lean closer to me and give me a little squeeze before she leaned away again, breaking my traitorously weak grasp. "It's okay. We'll both still be here in the morning. Get some rest now."

When I woke up the next morning, it was with the most well rested feeling I'd had in a long time. I smiled to myself at thoughts of my daughter visiting in my sleep. My time was close and my baby girl was waiting for me.

I got myself out of bed, working through the aches and pains that had become the most consistent companions of my life. When I hit middle age, my joints started to ache. Now, everything was just hurt. The doctors had given me pills but I'd seen first hand what those things did to people during my time on the force. The only way I would take those would be to avoid the pain completely, permanently. But while I was ready for the end, I wasn't exactly eager to rush it either. So, I treated the pain like I would treat death and taxes: unpleasant and completely unavoidable.

I slowly shuffled my way down to get the coffee started and then try to figure something out for breakfast. While I wasn't as hopeless in the kitchen as Bella had always accused me of being, I was never quite as up to the task of making a fancy spread like she would and I was even less so now. The thoughts of coffee and Bella's weekend breakfasts must be playing tricks as I swore I could smell freshly brewed coffee and bacon. I was shocked to find Bella in the kitchen finishing up breakfast next to a fully brewed pot of Joe.

"Good morning," she said in the same voice she spoke in the night before. It was still hers but not. In fact, everything about her was just as I'd seen the previous night. She was the same as she was all those years ago, but slightly off.

I grunted at her in greeting, not sure what to say. Maybe this was it. Maybe I'd died in my sleep the night before. I'd like to have thought that the hurt and fatigue of age and disease wouldn't have followed me, but my daughter was here and she'd made me breakfast.

"Am I dead?" I asked, finally getting the words out but not wanting to beat around the bush.

Her face fell. "No. Not yet at least. You've been to the doctor?" I nodded. "So you know you're close. I'm just…here to keep you company until then." She smiled again, that same smile she had whenever she was happy but embarrassed. She used to blush when she smiled that smile. She was my adorable, shy little girl who took after me in a lot of those ways.

"Do you know how long I've got?" I asked her, thinking she had some sort of inside information. I'd never been much into spirituality. My parents were Lutherans and I'd gone to church every Sunday when I was a kid but hadn't really paid it much mind ever since my mother stopped giving me grief over going. But this, my long dead daughter coming to keep me company until the end? Maybe I needed to start thinking about these things.

"Not long. I don't know exactly." She bit her lip in a way that was all too familiar. "I could find out but I didn't really want to know."

"No. That's fine. I guess we'll just keep each other company until I'm done." I didn't want her to go and do whatever just to find out exactly how long I had left however it was that she'd find that information out. I wanted to spend as much time with my girl as possible. I knew I blew it each time I'd gotten the chance before. I wasn't going to blow it now that it was possibly the last chance I'd ever get. I grinned. "Besides, then I'll get to join you."

Her eyes widened and suddenly she was standing unnaturally still, like a statue. She uttered out a little "Oh," and then muttered "So that's how…" before she shook her head and plate up my finished breakfast.

"Are you having any?" I asked, curious. It smelled amazing.

"Oh. No thanks. I'm not hungry."

I nodded. Shame that she probably didn't eat anymore. I'd already assumed that she didn't need to, but the idea that she couldn't put a bit of a damper on my spirits.

Those next few weeks were perhaps the happiest I'd ever had. She took good care of me just like she had before. She made sure I ate, we went for little walks all around although for some reason she said she couldn't go to La Push. I figured there was probably something about Native ancestors and ghosts not getting along or something. She told me that she was sorry for leaving me and wished she didn't have to but that she was happy with her husband, Edward. She said she still loved him and he still loved her. I guess at least they had each other to keep company. I understood that she'd probably been happy and at peace, even with him, so I couldn't really fault her. I didn't understand why she looked so guilty but I told her it was okay, that I didn't blame her. After all, even though she chose to spend those last few months away, it's not like she chose to die. And I was glad to hear that Edward wasn't the violent, bad seed I'd suspected. It was a weight off to know that they had just been dumb kids in love who met an accidental, untimely end together. Suddenly her love of Romeo and Juliet made me worry she thought it was what you were supposed to do, but I guess it was too late to point that out. It's not like her mother and I set a better example.

I still had a few well meaning regulars stop by to check on me while she was there. My neighbor, a girl named Kiki who was the same age Bella should've been, liked to keep an eye on me and would stop by every other day or so, my old deputy came to watch the game, and all the rest of the usual culprits visited with the best of intentions even if they weren't really needed. I guess I was still of this world yet. Any time someone knocked on my door though, Bella vanished without a trace as soon as I had the door open. Then, once they left, she would all of a sudden reappear with no sign of where she came from. Truly, she was here to watch over me. I knew that if I said anything to anybody their first reaction would be to drag me down to the loony bin so I didn't mention it. Besides, my little girl was here to take care of me and nobody really needed to know that.

One day I woke up to the sound of a cell phone ringing. I'd never gotten one of those things so I guessed it was Bella's. I didn't know she had one and briefly wondered why she would need one. A few seconds later she came in.

Now, my daughter had never been a good liar. Even when she got older and got better at spinning stories, she was awful at it. Her face told you everything you needed to know. That was still true, even as she was now. That phone call hadn't been a happy one. I suddenly wondered if she had to leave, if I'd only ever had her for a limited time. Then it hit me that that was exactly what we'd had, the entire reason she was here.

"When?" I asked before an all too common coughing fit hit me. I tried to keep it to just a couple but my throat and lungs had other plans. She handed me a tissue and I wiped my mouth, noting with detachment the blood that was now on the tissue.

"Heh, so that soon?"

"Do you want to know exactly when?" she asked in a voice I could barely hear. I wondered if she would get less corporeal as I got closer to the end. Maybe that was why her voice was more like the wind and why her skin glowed like moonlight.

I grabbed her cold hand with one of mine and rubbed her back with the other, something I'd done when she was little but stopped at some point for some reason I couldn't remember.

"When?" I asked again in a raspy voice. It was scratchy and sounded wet even to my aged ears. I wondered what she heard or if she just knew even more.

"Tonight. After you go to bed. You won't wake up. I don't think there'll be any pain."

I nodded in understanding. "Well, how about some breakfast then?" I asked as I started to struggle to get up. She stood by and watched, letting me pretend everything was normal but knowing it really wasn't.

She played along and pretended everything was normal while she made me a sausage and bacon omelet with home fries. If she hadn't told me this was going to be my last day, that sure would've tipped me off. We went fishing that afternoon and didn't catch anything but that was okay because for the first time I could remember, she suggested that she and I go fishing. I didn't even care that we were hours late. It's not like I would have had any use for the fish I caught. Instead we just stood in a calm silence next to each other.

"Can I ask you what it's like?" I said once we got home.

"What what's like?" she responded.

"You know, being on the other side."

Her eyes widened for a couple of seconds before she pursed her lips and shifted her eyes. "It's…not the same for me. I…didn't pass on. You will. I don't know what it'll be like for you."

"What's different? Surely you haven't been waiting around for me."

"No. The way I went…it was…before my time. It was sudden and now I'm like this. I don't get tired or hungry. I don't have to worry about getting hurt. I'm just like this, forever."

"Is Edward like you?" She nodded in response.

I nodded and turned away. So, my baby girl wouldn't be with me on the other side. At least I got this time with her.

That night, I felt reluctant to go to bed. I knew that would be it. But, I was tired and putting it off wouldn't change the fact that my time was here. I wasn't scared but I wasn't so sure I was as ready as I used to be. Now that I knew that I was leaving my baby girl behind I was looking forward to this less and less.

She walked with me up the stairs, seeming just as reluctant as I was. Neither of us pointed out the elephant in the room though. She helped me into bed and tucked the covers around me the same way I did too few times when she was young enough to do so.

"Don't cry," I rasped up to her with a smile. If anything, I was glad I'd gotten this chance. "I love you Isabella. I always will."

"I'm so sorry I left. I've missed you so much and I'll miss you forever."

"Don't worry. I don't hold it against you. I'm just happy you're happy. I've only ever wanted what's best for you. These past few weeks were more than I ever thought I'd get. Don't beat yourself up about things that happened, just try to keep going and make things better." Chuckling, I said the thing I was pretty sure she needed to hear. Maybe if she was ever able to make her peace, she'd be able to make that final step. Plus, this would be my last chance to pass on some fatherly wisdom. Maybe she'd even listen.

The last thing I was aware of before I slipped off to sleep was the feeling of her cold lips pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead and then a breath of a whisper saying "I love you."

~GotP~

Charlie Swan passed away peacefully in his sleep from a massive pulmonary embolism at 3:27 am on May 18, 2040. An anonymous man called 911 from a disposable cell phone reporting his death at ten that morning. As a strong pillar of the close-knit community of Forks, his funeral was attended by droves of people wanting to pay their respects. Despite the numerous people at the church during the service, involved in the procession to the cemetery, and then at the wake after, no one noticed the two ghostly figures dancing through the trees observing everything from afar.

"How are you?" a seemingly young man asked.

"I'm…glad I got to be there for him. At the end," Bella responded in a slightly deadened voice. "Do you know what he thought about me being there?"

"I've got an idea," he said while trying to keep back a crooked smile. Charlie Swan's usually muted thoughts had been full of white light and angel wings once Bella went to stay with him. "I guess that's why Alice said it would be fine for you to go."

"I guess so. Do you think…do you think he's happy, wherever he is?"

"I think he is now."

"Are you ready to go now?"

"We can stay as long as you'd like to love."

"I think I'm good then."

He nodded and together, they ran back through the thicket of the woods, back to join the rest of their family.