*EPOV*
On our way to Italy, Bella had been mentally chatty almost to the point of exasperation. (Particularly as we'd crossed the Atlantic, exploiting the fact that I had limited ability to respond.)
On our way back, however, she was like a completely different traveling companion. Bella hadn't once opened her thoughts to me since Volterra, and she'd only spoken when asked a direct question.
The silent treatment, I sighed. Or at least, that's what it felt like, though she insisted she was no longer angry with me.
If I thought her opinions on popular music were painful, the silent treatment seemed like cruel and unusual punishment by comparison. Totally deserved, of course, but torturous nonetheless.
It didn't help my anxiety one bit that when we arrived at our destination, I had to somehow look Charlie Swan in the face and answer for what I had done to his daughter and his family.
What could I possibly say that would excuse condemning a beautiful spirit like Bella's to an eternity of darkness? Like Hades abducting Persephone from a field of wildflowers, absconding with her to his exile in the Underworld so he would never have to be alone.
Except I hadn't thundered in on a four-horse chariot. I'd driven a Volvo.
What would I say if it was my daughter who came home from her first semester away at college a newly minted monster? I grimaced.
I imagined staring down the carbon steel barrel of Charlie's pump-action shotgun, my hands folded protectively over my genitals, stammering, "I know it seems bad, sir, but it could be worse. It's not like she's a vegan, right?"
Doomed. I was doomed and damned more than I ever thought possible. Just call me Christopher Columbus of the Underworld, as I'd found an as-yet-undiscovered tenth circle of hell.
Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, Treachery, & Edward, population: 1, reserved for the worst of all monsters.
It didn't matter. There was nothing he could say or do that I didn't completely deserve, or hadn't already self-loathingly thought of myself.
And while there was once a time when I feared Chief Swan flexing his parental authority and forbidding Bella from seeing me (I could always get around that), or worse, mandating she spend time with the mongrel, there was nothing he could do to keep her away from me now or ever again.
*CPOV*
I'd been surprised when Bella called back again so soon. I was even more surprised by the nerves I felt in my gut when her name and number lit up the dial of my cordless home phone.
Get a grip, I thought. It's your daughter, for God's sake, not the Grim Reaper!
"Hey there, Bells," I said into the phone after I picked up on the fourth ring, trying too hard to sound normal.
"Hi, Dad," she answered. I cringed at her strange musical voice that seemed to fit the old nickname to a tee. "I was wondering if you'd like to, um, plan a visit? Would that be too weird?" she asked tentatively, sounding just as nervous as I felt.
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Anytime, Bella. You're welcome anytime," I answered automatically because no matter how weird things actually were, that would always be true.
"Great!" She sounded relieved. "Well, um, would you be willing to meet me somewhere outside of Forks? It's hard to explain, but I can't come home."
"You can always come home, Bella." I could never stress that enough.
"So...I don't know how much Billy told you about the, um, the treaty...We broke it when Edward...when I became a Cullen. So we aren't safe in Forks. If Seth or Leah were there...if Sam found out, he'd send the wolves after us. That would be very, very bad."
"That's ridiculous! Seth and Leah would never go after you. Those are your step-siblings you're talking about!" I said angrily.
"I get that, Dad. And maybe they wouldn't mean to, but the way the wolves are wired, they don't always have complete free will over their actions.
"As the leader of the pack, Sam can give them orders that they physically can't disobey even if they wanted to. Unless the treaty was somehow reinstated, I won't ever be able to come back to Forks," she admitted sadly.
My eyes bulged open wide. So that must've been what Paul and Sam had been talking about that day in the woods in La Push. How the Cullens could never come back. The bloodthirsty tone in Paul's implied threat had made my blood run cold.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. This needed to get sorted out, and pronto. I didn't give a flying fart in space about (super)natural enemies and broken peace treaties.
There was no goddamn way that a tribe that I belonged to was going to threaten my daughter or intimidate her from coming home, or my name wasn't Chief Charlie Swan!
"Bella, let me call you back. Let me see what I can do about the tribe. Sit tight." I ended the call before she could argue with me.
I sighed heavily as I dialed the numbers. My wife picked up on the first ring.
"Charlie!" Sue exclaimed into the phone, sounding equally surprised and relieved to hear from me. "I'm so glad you called! I wanted to call you, so many times, but I didn't think you wanted to speak to me…" she confessed in a thick voice, already sounding choked up.
"I just needed some time, Sue. You spent your entire childhood learning the legends, even if you didn't believe them.
"I found out not only that mythical creatures are real but that my daughter is a vampire and my stepkids are werewolves all on the same day! Not to mention that my best friend and my wife have been keeping it from me all along!" I blustered.
"I know! I know, and I'm so sorry, Charlie. I wanted to-"
"I know," I cut her off. I hadn't called to rehash things or listen to her apologize again. "Look, I talked to Bella. She thinks I should forgive you because even if you'd told me the truth from the start, there's nothing I could've done that would've changed what happened...that I just would've driven her to run off with him."
Sue's breath hitched in her throat. "And what do you think?" she asked in a trembling voice.
The silence between us drew out for a protracted moment as I gathered my thoughts. "I've been thinking about that a lot... And as much as it hurts to admit it, the kid was right. It was probably for the best that I didn't know," I grumbled in defeat.
At least this way I got to walk her down the aisle, got to see her off to college, and hear from her every now and then. She didn't run off, never to be heard from again.
Over the almost twenty years I'd spent on the police force, I'd seen the haunted faces of the parents with missing children. It was one of the worst parts of the job.
It would surely kill me, laying in bed awake every night wondering where Bella was. If she was safe. Or cold or hungry. Or alive.
Wondering if I'd just been a better father...wondering if she knew how loved she was because I never said it enough. Wondering if she knew that she could always come home, no matter what she'd done or how long she'd been gone.
My chin wobbled just thinking about it. If that was the alternative to the reality I currently faced, well then I would take this one and be grateful. Or at least try to be, anyway. I couldn't lose Bella. That was the only reality I couldn't face.
"Sue...When I said my marriage vows, I meant them. For better or for worse. And while I didn't expect the worst to come quite so soon," I grumbled, "I want to try to move forward. But before I can do that, I need you to do something for me."
"Anything," Sue breathed without a moment's hesitation.
"Get Sam to reinstate the treaty. Now. Today. I will not be part of a tribe that is actively trying to kill my daughter," I demanded without an ounce of compromise in my voice.
There was a beat of silence. Then she came back on the line with firm resolve in her tone. "I'll talk to him. And Charlie?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you," Sue proclaimed, her low, soothing voice was steady and fiercely determined.
My throat got tight. I sighed and took a swig of my beer that was getting warm. I set it down next to my microwaved TV dinner for one. "I love you, too, Suzie Q."
*BPOV*
I checked my phone again to see if I'd somehow missed a call from Charlie. I hadn't. I sighed and set it down on the bedside table of the hotel room we'd rented to clean up, recharge our phones, and wait for an update from my dad.
Edward was seated across the room at the small desk updating his dad on how everything had gone in Volterra and our plans to see Charlie before coming home.
"Carlisle told me to tell you you're grounded when we get back," Edward cracked my favorite crooked smile as he snapped his flip phone shut.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same" I smirked. "Maybe Carlisle will have better luck keeping me in line than Charlie did, especially since I'll probably never sass back to Carlisle," I mused with a snort.
"With a rebel streak like yours?" Edward snorted right back. " Give it ten or twenty years. You won't be vying for his approval forever," he confidently replied with a chuckle.
"And you already have it, by the way, Carlisle's approval. In spades," Edward added earnestly, his golden eyes oozing with sincerity. But behind the sincerity, there was something else..relief. He was probably elated that I'd said more than two words to him for the first time since we'd left Volterra.
Was I still angry with him? No, not really. I just wasn't feeling very generous with my thoughts, and yeah, maybe I was punishing him a little. Who could blame me after the stunt he pulled in Italy?
And speaking of parental approval, I was also under a tremendous amount of pressure.
After all, I was going to see my human father who knew what I had become, and by some miracle, hadn't disowned me. And then there was the business of not killing him by accident. It would be my hardest test with the highest stakes yet.
In a weird way, it felt like I was meeting my own father for the first time because in a way, I was. I had the same butterflies in my stomach as when Edward wanted to introduce me to his family. The same instinctive fear of rejection.
"You're nervous about seeing Charlie. " Edward phrased it as a statement rather than a question. "But you don't need to. Charlie's capacity to love you is almost as endless as mine," he murmured with a soft smile.
He was always so good at reading me, I sighed. "I don't know why you bother asking to hear my thoughts when you already know what I'm thinking," I rolled my eyes a little snarkily.
"Some times are easier than others," he admitted with a shrug. "You think you're worried about seeing Charlie? I'm a dead man! Worse than dead! Deader than dead," his eyes widened with trepidation.
"True," I nodded in agreement. "I would not want to be in your shoes right now," I giggled, thinking about my endlessly polite Edward facing down Charlie's red-faced wrath.
"Gee, thanks," Edward replied acidly, but I could tell he was happy to finally see me smile, even if it was at his own expense.
"But in all seriousness, love... Charlie is not going to be kind to me when he sees me, and it's unfair of you to expect him to be.
"I know it's in your nature to defend me, but I need you to let him say whatever he needs to say to me, no matter how unfair you think he's being. Can you do that, please?" Edward asked, his thick eyebrows knitting together.
I looked at him appraisingly. "You don't know what you're asking. That's like asking you to take the time to open a door when you hear me screaming on the other side," I analogized, arching a challenging eyebrow in his direction. Some things were instinctive and couldn't be overridden.
"Touché. But I'm asking anyway. No ultimatums. No threatening to never come back unless he's going to be nice to me. I've earned every ounce of Charlie's hatred, and it's high time I was held accountable," Edward said with a contrite expression.
"He's not going to mess up your pretty face if he shoots you point blank with his shotgun, is he?" I asked, only half-joking. Forever was a long time to spend staring at someone with a blown-off face.
"I'd be honestly surprised if he aimed for my face," Edward said despondently, sounding very much like a dead man walking.
"Charlie can say whatever he wants, but he won't be aiming any guns below the belt." I gestured broadly to his groin area. "I need that."
"I rather share your sentiments," he smirked, then he stood up from the desk and joined me on the creaky, lumpy king-sized bed.
The lonely roadside motor lodge with only a single car in the parking lot seemed like our safest bet as far as accommodations, but it was hardly Hôtel Chez Swann.
"Can I say I'm sorry again?" Edward murmured as he spooned himself around me.
"No," I growled, snuggling deeper into his arms with a little wiggle of my hips.
"Well, I am," he insisted, kissing my hair. "And if talking to me again is any indication of your forgiveness, then I'm grateful. It's unbearable being on your bad side, Mrs. Cullen."
"I rather thought you liked my bad side," I purred suggestively with a devilish smile. "Maybe I was misreading things."
Edward's chest rumbled with a playful growl as I teased him. "I love all of your many sides," he crooned as he kissed my ear.
"And angles..." he moved along the ridge of my jaw.
"And curves." Edward's lips brushed against the curve of my shoulder. And before he could kiss any more of my geometry, my phone started vibrating across the surface of the bedside table.
My hand shot out in front of me to snatch it off the table. Too antsy and anxious to take the call lying down, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and lurched to an upright position to take the call.
Edward let out a small sigh and moved to sit next to me, laying a supportive hand on my thigh.
"Hey kiddo, sorry to call so late. Sue just got back from La Push...handing the phone to her. She can explain things better than I can."
"Um, sure," I chirped, a little thrown. I was glad that it sounded like Charlie and Sue were on better terms, but I had no idea what she could want to talk to me about.
"Hi Bella," Sue said a bit tentatively.
"Hi, Sue! I just wanted to say congratulations. On your wedding. To Ch-Dad," I stuttered awkwardly. "I'm really happy for you both!" I added with as much warmth and sincerity as I could muster.
"Oh!" she said, sounding a little surprised. "Thanks, Bella. That means a lot to me. And you know, I think this marriage, a blended family of vampires and wolves is going to help change things. Create peace. I'm hopeful anyway, but it's going to take time.
"That said, I spoke to Sam and the elders. I reasoned with them that it would be just as devastating to the pack and by extension the tribe to kill a fellow Quileute's child as it would be to kill the subject of a wolf's imprint.
"Technically speaking, because your father married into the tribe, you are now the daughter of a Quileute and therefore cannot be harmed." Edward let out a sharp exhale of relief in receipt of this new information.
"Now, they wouldn't budge on fully reinstating the treaty because they don't want any more of the tribe's youth to join the pack. But as a courtesy to me and Charlie, they will allow the Cullens to visit the area, keeping to the same boundaries as before, as long as your family agrees not to settle here again as long as the Quileute Nation lives on this land."
My jaw dropped open. I could go home again without fear of retribution! The Jake drawer rattled but I ignored it. For now.
"That's totally reasonable. And we accept those terms," I said while Edward nodded in agreement at my side. "Thank you, Sue. You don't know what this means to me!" I cried, feeling my eyes burn with tears that would never fall.
In a quieter voice, Sue answered back "Thank you. For whatever you said to him."
I smiled. "Swans get angry fast and forgive even faster. And most importantly, we mate for life," I mused, gazing adoringly into Edward's buttery gold eyes.
"I love that. Alright, handing you back over to your dad now. Bye Bella."
"Take care, Sue," I beamed.
"So that takes care of that, right? When are you coming?" Charlie asked, and if my ears didn't deceive me, it sounded like he was even a little excited.
"That definitely takes care of that," I nodded with a wide smile. "Is tomorrow too soon? I know you usually go to the lake on Saturdays..."
"I can go fishing anytime, Bella," Charlie chided. "Tomorrow's great. I'll pick up some steaks from Thriftway..."
"Um, Dad? Edward and I won't be eating." But it made me smile that for that one brief moment, he'd been able to forget what I was and just talk to me like I was his daughter. It gave me hope.
"Oh, right," he grunted. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised that your husband will be with you," he said grouchily. "That'll be fun. Bring him," he said with an undertone of malice in his falsely chipper voice.
I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of "Be nice," but Edward gently nudged me in the ribs with his elbow as a reminder. Oh, right. I was supposed to let Charlie have his feelings.
So I settled for, "Yup. Package deal, remember? We'll be flying in the evening, so we'll swing by after dinner," I said, not seeing the need to explain to him that we would be "flying" on foot.
"Sounds great, Bells," Charlie said with a note of hesitance in his voice.
Picking up on that, I asked, "Something wrong, Dad?" I asked, feeling like an idiot as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I was a vampire, for crying out loud! What about any of this would feel right to Charlie?
"Oh, um, I was just sorta wondering if I needed to vampire-proof the house or anything? Get rid of the garlic and silver?"
I chuckled, remembering how I'd asked Edward the very same sorts of questions during that momentous ride home from Port Angeles. I'd asked Edward out of curiosity. Charlie was asking to be considerate of me. I noted the difference and melted a bit at the sweetness.
"Those are just myths, but that's sweet of you to ask... It's late. I'll let you get some sleep. Oh, and, Dad, I'm really happy you made up with Sue," I said sincerely.
"Me too, kiddo. Me too... Alright, well, I'll see you tomorrow then. Love you, Bells."
It hadn't escaped my notice that he'd been saying that more and more since I'd left his house than I ever remembered him saying it before.
"Love you, too, Dad. See you then," I smiled with misty eyes.
Not long after I ended the call with Charlie, Edward received a call from Sam Uley.
"Good evening, Sam," Edward's velvet voice greeted. I could hear the gratitude in the warmth of his tone. "Sue Clear-ah, I guess it's Sue Swan, now, just told Bella about the tribe's decision. This is incredibly gracious of you and the tribe, Sam. We really app-"
Sam's harsh voice on the other end of the phone cut Edward off.
"It's not for your benefit, Cullen," Sam sneered. "You bloodsuckers are the whole reason Sue, Leah, and Seth lost Harry to begin with. Do you think any of us could look into her eyes again if she lost Charlie, too?"
Edward's eyebrows shot up in surprise at this revelation, as did mine. "Regardless, we're still grateful. And we accept your terms."
Sam hung up without another word.
"If she lost Charlie?" I echoed Sam's words with confusion written all over my furrowed brow.
"If I had to guess, knowing the timing of Charlie's reconciliation with Sue and how you Swans love a good ultimatum," Edward arched an eyebrow at me with teasing accusation, "...it sounds like Charlie went to bat for you with the Quileutes."
I swallowed convulsively at the big lump that grew out of the burning ache in the back of my throat. The uncontained fire raged ever hotter as if the monster locked inside knew that I would be among humans again soon. I cupped my hand over my throat though my palm did nothing to smother the flames.
Ever since I'd gotten that unnerving voicemail from Charlie, I'd pegged the Volturi as the worst threat to my father's wellbeing. All the while, I'd sort of lost sight of the fact that for the time being, as the uncontrolled newborn that I was, Charlie's biggest threat was me.
"I'm going to need to hunt," I said at last as I watched my mouth move on the wall mirror opposite the bed. It was the only part of my unnaturally still body that moved at all. My strange amber eyes were wide and fearful, glowing brightly against the pale alabaster of my skin.
Would Charlie be able to see past the strange fiery eyes, perfected features, and corpse-pale skin to see the daughter he loved underneath? Or would he only see the monster I'd become?
*A/N* I was hoping to make it to Forks this chapter but had to resolve the matter of the treaty first before they could just show up at Charlie's door.
I've gotten some really interesting suggestions about what should go down when Edward and Charlie are finally face to face. What would you say to Edward if you were Charlie? What would you say to Charlie if you were Edward?! 😱 I'm chomping at the bit to get the next chapter written, so expect an update soon. Thanks for reading and reviewing! Can't wait to hear what you think! Til next time lovelies!
