{Dark Place}
Just like Alice promised, she drove Bella back home later that afternoon, an hour before her dad returned from work. Bella had enough time left to get started with cooking and sat down at the kitchen table with her phone in her hand, opening her text messages as she waited for the food to heat. During the time she and Alice had spent together, they had exchanged phone numbers and now that they were not sitting right next to each other, they texted back and forth for a while. Bella caught herself grinning stupidly at the screen of her phone as Alice sent her a hilarious play-by-play narration of a fight that had broken out between her siblings.
It was like this that Charlie found his daughter that evening after work, bent forward over her phone, thumbs flying over the screen as she typed out a reply. He grinned and watched her for a minute from his place in the doorway, leaning on the doorpost. When she snorted again, biting her lip to contain her laughter, he straightened up and stepped forward to slap his hand down on her shoulder.
"Good evening!"
Bella thought she must have shot up at least a foot at the sudden movement, her heart jumping in her chest. Within a second, she had turned herself around and spotted her father, who looked way too pleased with himself. "Dad! Don't ever do that again, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"
"Now, don't exaggerate," her dad smirked, taking off his coat and draping it over the back of a chair. He pulled it out and sat down with a sigh. "How was your day? Did you hand out at Tanya's after school?"
"It was alright," Bella shrugged. "And Tanya actually introduced me to her extended family. They moved here last week, maybe you've heard of them, they're the Cullens? The kids go to Forks High and their father, Carlisle, works in the hospital."
"Ah," her dad hummed. "I met him a few days ago, he seems to be a great guy. A bit young, but great."
"Dad, you're young," Bella deadpanned as she sent Alice a 'bye' and turned off her phone. "And you'll even look the part if you'd finally decide to shave that hideous moustache."
Her dad gasped in mock hurt. "This masterpiece? Never."
"Anyway," Bella sighed, knowing the topic was a lost cause. "I started on dinner…"
Her voice trailed off when she turned around and noticed that the potatoes that stood on the stove had completely overcooked. Her eyes widened and she slowly moved back to look her dad into the eye. "Shit."
Her dad, meanwhile, had gotten a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Bella messes up a meal? That must have been one special person on your messages, honey."
"No, no," Bella shook her head. "We're not even getting into that."
"Alright," her dad said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I won't say a thing. But I do know that that" – he motioned to the pan – "is in no way salvageable. Pizza?"
"Sure," Bella sighed.
As was usual for a small town like theirs, it did not take long for their dinner to arrive. Bella poured the both of them something to drink and they seated themselves at the kitchen table.
"So," Bella said, swallowing a bite of her cheese pizza. "How was work?"
"It was okay," her dad nodded. "There were a couple of interesting cases today, actually, and one for which the department in Anchorage asked for our help."
"Cool," Bella hummed. "Did anything else happen?"
"Well," he said. "I got a call from Mr Lagman during lunch today."
Bella straightened up in her seat. "What did he say?"
"It seems that we may have been worrying ourselves too early," he told her. "You're sixteen now, of course, and you'll have to most say in the courtroom. Harriet can try and plead for visitation or custody all she wants, but as long as the judge deems me suitable to be your parent, you'll be able to say who you want to see. They can't force you to meet up with her if you don't want to."
"Oh." Bella sighed in relief. "So, I don't have to see her?"
Her dad shook his head. "No."
Bella nearly smiled in relief, but there was a glimpse of hesitancy in her dad's eyes that stopped her from doing so. "What is it?"
"Harriet-" he began slowly, before starting over. "Mr Lagman said that Harriet seems to be sincere in her actions."
"What do you mean?" Bella asked, her brows creasing in confusion.
"It means that she might actually be trying to make amends," he said. "And that she's not just doing this to spite me or you. Mr Lagman told me she wrote you a letter."
"Wait," Bella said incredulously. "She honestly wants to see me? The woman was all too happy to be rid of me. Now she wants me back? Seriously?"
"I don't know what her reasons are," her dad sighed. "And as I said, you'll have the biggest -say in all of this. It's all about your rights and health. Just- just think about it, alright?"
The rest of dinner was spent in silence.
Her mother was a constant subject on Bella's mind in the following week. The conversation with her dad had brought up some darker memories from before her time with him as well as all the feelings that came with them. Flashes of things she would much rather forget than relive played in her mind over and over again. It drove her crazy.
She still had to go to school, obviously, but the heavy and pressing thoughts took away all her will to get out of the house for anything else. Alice's text messages still kept coming through, but they no longer seemed as funny as they had been that Wednesday. Any subtle hints towards chances to meet up were ignored and the light atmosphere and enthusiasm Alice usually carried with her, slowly diminished. Not that Bella noticed it much, as she reverted to her old coping mechanisms and shut everyone out.
Angela, the sweet girl she was, tried to lighten the mood by talking about her little brothers who she would soon be seeing, but Bella barely listened. Sleeping, which was usually her refuge, became a tedious task as she lay wide awake in bed for hours on end.
Charlie could do nothing but watch his daughter retreat into herself, hoping that she would soon manage to pull herself out of that dark place. However, when there was still no improvement after nearly a week, he knew something had to happen.
"Bella?" he started. They had been sitting across from each other in silence for yet another evening.
Bella lifted her head from where she had been listlessly playing with the food on her plate to look her dad into the eyes.
He leaned forward. "Please put in a call to your therapist, to set up an appointment."
Bella bit her lip, looking back down. "Alright."
"Hey," her dad said as he placed a hand on top of hers. "You don't have to try and deal with it all on your own. Not anymore."
Later that week Bella found herself walking to English class early, feeling much lighter. She found Alice already seated in her usual spot and, after taking a deep breath, she spoke a sincere apology for her ignorant behaviour. Although Alice assured her it was all fine, saying she understood, Bella could see the relief in her eyes. It made her feel terribly guilty to think she had hurt people, had hurt her friends, by retreating into herself. She made a vow, right there and then, to try and learn again how to cope better with difficult situations.
"Would you like to come over this afternoon?" Bella found herself blurting out near the end of English class. "I, well, I'm baking some things for my dad and his colleagues and I could use the help, if you'd want to?"
Alice looked surprised, but recovered fast as a big smile spread across her face. "I'd love to come and help!"
That was how Bella found herself in the kitchen with an excited, yet quite helpless, Alice.
"I just realised I have actually never done this before," Alice muttered, looking at the buttons on the kitchen aid with wide eyes. "I've seen Esme bake before, but I never did it myself. Why are there this many settings?"
Bella had to bite the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from laughing. "There is a first time for everything, isn't there? It's not nearly as difficult as you think, anyway. Let's get the ingredients out first. Why don't you go grab the butter from the fridge?"
With Alice's help, it took twice as long as usual to finish up the first batch of cupcakes. However, if she was being honest, Bella did not mind at all. The atmosphere was light, and she had not realised how much she needed to have a bit of fun after the emotionally draining week that lay behind her.
They soon fell into a comfortable interaction as the bantered back and forth about mundane things and began working on the next batch.
"It's weird," Bella commented offhandedly, mixing in the flour with an absentminded look.
Alice looked up from the cupcakes she was taking out of the cooling muffin tin. "What is?"
"I've known you for, what: two, three weeks now?" At Alice's hum in confirmation, she continued, "It feels like so much longer. It usually takes me ages to warm up to new people."
Had Bella been able to see Alice's face, she would have been met with a blinding smile.
It was like that, that Charlie found his daughter and her new friend when he returned home from his shift. He could feel the strange charge in the air, but decided not to comment on it as he hung his jacket in the hallway and put his gun in the safe.
"Hey Bells," he said when he stepped into the kitchen.
"Hi Dad." Bella smiled and turned around to give him a hug. "I don't think you've met Alice?"
"Nope," Alice answered instead. "It's a pleasure to meet you, officer! My dad thinks very highly of you."
"It's nice to meet you too, Alice," her dad said, shaking her hand. "And call me Charlie. Anyone who makes Bella smile like that deserves it."
Bella was sure that her cheeks were a bright red colour as her face warmed up in embarrassment. "Dad!"
Her dad had the decency to look at least slightly scolded and he cleared his throat. "Well, uh, I guess I'll leave you two to it. I'll take care of dinner, Bella, so don't worry about that."
An awkward silence hung in the kitchen for about two seconds before Alice blurted out "I did not know humans could turn such a shade of red!" and Bella burst out in nervous laughter.
Bella's newfound happiness kept her going all throughout the weekend and the shitload of homework she had to complete. However, the floaty bubble was burst on the next Monday afternoon, when she turned on the television to look for some entertainment and a news item grabbed her attention.
"A young couple was found dead a few feet into the forest near Anchorage this morning. Although the investigation is still ongoing, the police has revealed that the cause of death for both victims was complete exsanguination. We have here with us crime specialist Carl Stevens. Carl, could you tell us…"
Bella snapped out of her trance and turned down the volume, blindly reaching over to grab her phone from the coffee table. Within a second, she had dialled the phone number of the Denali residence.
"Hey Bella," she heard. "How are you doing?"
"Hi Irina," Bella answered, eyes scanning the television where they were showing brief flashes of the side of the road where police cars were blocking the view from the press. "I'm alright, I think, though there is something I wanted to ask you. It might be nothing, but I have a bad feeling about it. Have you seen the news today?"
It was silent for a moment. "We did see it, yes, if it's the murders you're talking about?"
"Yes," Bella nodded.
"We talked to the Volturi and thought we should take a look at it ourselves, to make sure it was not caused by a vampire. Tanya and a few of the Cullens went out to investigate it this afternoon."
"And?" Bella asked. "Did you hear anything from them?"
"I just got a message that they found a scent."
"Not knowing is a dark place."
A/N: First of all, I'd like to put a disclaimer here: I do not have any expertise in the area of law (especially law considering divorce and custody). All information used, comes from personal research I did on the internet, but my sources were limited and as such my knowledge is in no way perfect. I probably took, and will take, quite a bit of artistic liberty with this story, though I'll try and keep it as true as I know it to be. If there are any inconsistensies or if you think anything is not right, please let me know, so I can take that into account with the rest of the story.
Now that that's out of the way, here is part 7 of Touching Souls, with a bit more material for the plot and, of course, time for Bella and Alice to bond. Bella has to deal with her issues and coping mechanisms as her past comes back to haunt her. I'm sorry it took me quite a while to update, but after my exams I flew across the globe and I decided I should probably explore this beautiful country instead of sitting inside and staring at a screen. But, I found a bit of time to write, so here you are! I hope you enjoy it, I will soon be working on the next chapter, though I don't know when I'll be able to finish that one. Thank you to all who reviewed the last chapter, and I'd like to ask you to please leave me a review to let me know what you think of this part, it would totally make my day! Until next time,
- Laura
PS: I don't know if it's common knowledge, or whether I only know it because of the vampire fandom; 'exanguination' means 'the action/process of draining/losing blood.