Chapter 1: Homecoming

Bella's flight is supposed to land at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at approximately two in the afternoon.

It's a three-and-a-half-hour trip to Seattle from Forks, and that doesn't include the fifteen inevitable bathroom breaks Dad and I will probably make on the journey to the other side of the state. It doesn't include the bad-weather warnings we've already received, or the pending flight delay Bella emailed over to me from the airport in Phoenix the night before.

Dad and I leave Forks at six AM, anyway.

We make it to the airport parking dock by ten o'clock, and we halfheartedly bicker back and forth in front of the poor parking attendant as he shells out thirty dollars for the police cruiser to sit in a vacant spot for the entire afternoon. "No discounts for Chief of Police, I'm guessing," he grumbled to me as we drove away.

"Just think of it as spending the thirty dollars you usually save from all the discounts you get at the diner," I grinned sardonically. He'd given me a veiled, sarcastic little smile hidden under his mustache, mumbling my words back to me in a whiny voice as I rolled my eyes, a stiff chuckle erupting from my mouth.

It was hardly a laugh- it was more of a puff of air that died in the air between us just as quickly as it had spilled from my mouth. There's a strange feeling in my chest that I'm sure Dad feels similarly but differently all on his own, something as warm and filling as it is… apprehensive. And I am. Apprehensive, I think.

But I'm excited. I hold onto that feeling. She's my big sister, and she's coming home. How could I feel anything other than this, when Bella's right back where she should be?

Maybe there is a little voice in the back of my head that reminds me that Bella and I haven't lived together since she was six and I was three. A voice that says that the four weeks we spend together a year isn't really enough to know a person -sister or not; a voice that tells me the girl who'll be stepping off that plane might be completely different from the girl I know from our emails, the girl I spend Thanksgivings with, the girl I share everything and nothing with, whether she knows it or not.

The voice tugged at me for all one-hundred-and-eighty-five miles of the drive, but I wave it away now as flippantly as I can because I also remember the fact that she's not just some girl. Bella's my sister.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I nearly jump out of the passenger seat, scrambling to pull it out with moist palms until it rests in my lap. It's not Bella, just Jake, and a text rolls across my screen like some sort of assurance from the universe. A shaky exhale leaves my lungs as I flip the open the sticker-covered Samsung.

From: Jake

Remember to relax, Sophie. Don't make it weird, it's a long drive back!

Fondly, I roll my eyes and send him a quick smiley-face. Don't make it weird, I repeat to myself like a mantra. It's just Bella, you don't have to try too hard. You're family.

"Is that-"

"Jake," I interrupt my Dad's question, knowing what he's going to ask before he mentions my sister's name. "Just sending me a little pick-me-up, he knows today's a big deal."

Dad clears his throat and nods, palming at his face as he drums against the steering wheel with his other hand. "You, uh… you're not nervous or anything, are you?" he asks awkwardly. "You shouldn't be, you know. But I…I get it, it'll be an adjustment."

I smile at him and shake my head dismissively. "Good nerves," I promise. "It'll be good to have her home."

"Yeah. It will."

Neither of us says anything for a moment, but I reach for his hand over the console and give his fingers a tight squeeze. "It's okay, Dad. Everything's gonna be perfect, I've got a good feeling."

Dad's gaze drops down to our hands and he squeezes back, the corners of his mustache tilting up. "Love you, kid."

"I know. Me too."

It's probably the jetlag, I tell myself. And the fact that it's a big adjustment – for all of us, of course, but for Bella more than anyone. That's why despite my best efforts, it's not exactly the "welcome home" celebration I thought it would be.

It's uncomfortable. Stilted and foreign, like three strangers who've only just met were forced to stand around in baggage claim for far too long. There's an unrelenting, thick tension between all of us as we wait for Bella's bags to roll in from the plane, little more than failed conversation starters that spiral into nothing.

I feel a little embarrassed to be holding the large, blue poster board I'd brought along with me. 'Welcome Home, Bella!' is written in big, white bubble letters I found from the scrapbooking section of the craft store; the glitter I'd glued down onto the cardboard sprinkles onto my jeans with each movement. My drawing of the outline of Washington isn't anything to write home about, surely, but it'd taken me two whole afternoons after soccer practice to finish it in time.

"That's…wow," Bella had said as she approached us, carry-on bag in hand. I beamed at her cheerfully, teetering it side-to-side in a funny dance. "You, uh, definitely didn't need to do all of…that."

"Course I did, dummy. Welcome home!"

Bella had smiled, a little unsurely maybe, but she smiled. And that counted for something, in my book.

The drive back from Seattle is hell on wheels- literally. Everything is so quiet and stiff that I disregard Jake's advice entirely because I find it impossible to stop my motormouth from rambling to Bella about everything and nothing and anything in between.

"You're gonna love Forks High. Lots of cute boys…do you have a boyfriend, Bella?"

"In Forks, it's always raining, but there's still plenty to do. Outdoorsy stuff you might like, y'know? It's kinda like Phoenix, except…not at all, I guess. Right?"

"Remember that one time we went to Biltmore Fashion Park? Well, Port Angeles has a mall. Well, it's not really a mall-mall, we don't even have a Wet Seal…but it has boutiques. And a half-decent Italian restaurant, as long as you don't order any of the pasta dishes. Or the pizza. Or the calamari appetizer."

"You don't have, like, seasonal allergies or anything, do you? Would you even know that, living in Arizona?"

Even though Dad has to put his hand on my knee several times in silent warning to slow down, much to my relief, Bella humors my endless questions and rambles with answers that are more than just a single word. I wonder if she knows that my nerves are a little shaken, I wonder if she knows me well enough to know that this is what I do when they are. I feel a lot less like Bella's fifteen-year-old sister than I do a tour guide as I give a very detailed, very animated explanation of the Forks area, but at least something fills the vacant space sitting between all of us.

I'm halfway through another ramble when Bella asks a question of her own.

"…So I'll be at soccer practice behind the school three days a week, but-"

"Soccer?"

I turn in the passenger seat and give Bella a questioning smile. "Yeah."

"I didn't realize you were…I didn't know you still did that."

My smile curiously wanes a bit - I know I must've mentioned it in the emails we send back and forth. "She's a center-back," Dad supplies, clapping a hand on my shoulder proudly. "Only freshman in the whole school who made Varsity last year…how many girls tried out again, Sophie?"

Blood rushes to my cheeks. "Da-ad."

"Sixteen girls, Bells. Sophie beat 'em all."

"It wasn't a big deal," I say embarrassedly, turning back to Bella. "Most of those girls were trying out for forward positions, so it's not like I was…but… anyway, you should come out sometime and watch a game. Really."

Bella pushes her hair back and pokes tongue at the inside of her cheek, shaking her head. "I-I'm not really a big 'soccer-person','" she replies. "Or a big, uh, sports-person in general."

Disappointment floods me as soon as the words leave her mouth, and she must see it because she quickly backtracks. "But, y'know, obviously I'd come and watch you play. For sure."

"She's real good, Bells…can run laps around any of those other girls. Even Jake can't keep up with her."

"Jake?"

"Yeah, remember him?"

Bella shakes her head, and Dad waives it off. "You'll see him pretty soon, I'm sure."

The rest of the ride home is just as awkward as it started, and fidgeting for something to do, I whip my phone back out of my pocket and flip it open.

To: Jake

I think I made it weird :(

"It's a pretty good work lamp," Dad says uncomfortably, moving around the bedroom that up until a few weeks ago, used to be mine. "Your sister picked out the bed stuff… you like purple, right?"

Bella looks down at the duvet cover, cradling the baby potted cactus in between her hands as her gaze flickers back up to both of us. "Purple's cool," she assures. "Thanks."

None of us say anything as Dad keeps looking around, eyes peering up and down the walls for anything we might've forgotten from when he and I started making up the room for Bella. If there was one good thing about giving my bedroom to my sister, it was the fact that I had complete creative authority to make it a dream teen-girl's paradise, and I'd gone all out.

Leering in the doorway with wringing hands, I start to wonder if maybe I'd gone a little overboard. It had all been guesswork when we'd gone to the department store to get Bella all the things I thought she would need, all the things I thought she would want, but as I look at the blank expression on her face and the nervous tick in my Dad's jaw, none of the eagerness or excitement I'd anticipated seems to be present.

"Okay," Dad says finally, hands resting on his belt. He opens his mouth to say something but quickly shuts it, and he moves around me to leave through the bedroom door.

Bella and I stand there silently, neither of us sure what more there is to say.

"You can, like, totally tell me if you hate it," I blurt out, folding my arms across my chest as if to brace myself for her impending words. "I didn't think you'd really want, y'know, horses and stuff like you did a few years ago, so I just kind of went crazy in terms of the decorations."

"No, no!" Bella rushes to say, shaking her head. "No, it's just…isn't this…your room?"

My cheeks heat. "Well, was. Past-tense. It's your room now, though, so you can change anything you want."

"You didn't have to…I mean, I would've been fine sleeping on the couch, or something."

I laugh. "No way," I tell her. "Plus, in a town this small, you're gonna need all the privacy you can get."

Bella looks around again, and then back at me. "But…where are you sleeping?"

"We converted Dad's home office down the hall."

"Isn't it…a little-"

"Small? Yeah, but between practice and school and stuff, I don't spend a whole lotta time at home. It's perfect, trust me."

Bella nods. "Yeah," she says, more to herself than to me. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Soph. I mean it. If I knew that you'd-"

"Then I would've done it anyway," I smile. "And that's not the only surprise, by the way."

And as fate would have it, I can hear the old Chevy horn outside in the driveway, and I start over towards the door. "Come on out, when you're ready."

I don't bother to wait for Bella as she collects herself, and I nearly fly down the stairs and through the front door. Dad is already outside with Billy and Jake, his hand resting on the red, rust-covered truck appreciatively. He's had Jake working on this thing for months, prepping it and making sure the old thing was road-ready and safe to drive, all leading up to this very moment.

Billy looks up at me as I stand out on the front steps, my jaw dropping incredulously as I take in the sight of the Chevy. To think, that only a few weeks ago it didn't even have tires, and here it is. I don't even have a learner's permit, but even I sort of wish it was mine.

"Ah, if it isn't our local soccer superstar," Billy says affectionately as I jog over to them. "Whatdya think?"

"What do I think?!" I exclaim, ignoring his praise. "It looks amazing, I can't believe you did it, Jake!"

Jake bashfully places a hand at the back of his neck under his long, dark hair, and shrugs his shoulders. "It's not perfect…there's still some tweaks I would've made if I had-"

"Oh shush and take the compliment."

"Says you."

I muster up a big, feigned frown and mumble something mocking, to which I'm met with a light shove to my shoulder. It's completely on par for our normal theatrics, Jake and I – the kind of big-brother-little-sister stuff anyone would expect from two kids without moms who were practically raised together. This small retreat into normalcy helps my nerves just a little – if I pretend hard enough, it's almost like nothing's changed.

The creaking sound of the front screen door remains proof that things definitely have.

Bella slowly wanders outside, her teeth bitten firmly into her lower lip as she tries to figure out if she's interrupting something. You're not, I want to say to her. You're part of this, too, you know. All of this is for you, Bella.

"Bella, you remember Billy Black," Dad introduces.

"Yeah," she says, finally smiling as she goes to shake Billy's hand. "Wow, you're looking good."

"Well, I'm still dancing," he jokes. "I'm glad you're finally here. Charlie here hasn't shut up about it since you told him you were coming."

Dad's face grows ruddy, and Jake and I both barely stifle our own chuckles. "Alright, keep exaggerating. I'll roll you right into the mud."

"After I ram you in the ankles!"

"Bring it!"

Billy and Dad playfully square off right in the middle of the damp, rain-riddled street, and Bella, Jake, and I stand there in a quiet triangle left behind. Jake is the first person to break the silence, shaking his head as if he needed to remember where he is, and grins. "Hi, I'm Jacob," he says strangely.

"Hey," Bella nods, shoving her hands into her back pockets.

"We used to, uh, make mud pies when we were little."

"Right. No, I remember."

I stand there shuffling my feet, watching as Bella and Jake stand mere inches away from each other and stare with unrelenting eye contact. "Are they always like this?" Bella asks him, jerking her head over at our two, fully grown fathers acting like children.

"It's…getting worse with old age," he chuckles.

"Good."

Dad walks back over, Billy trailing behind him, and slaps a hand down on the backend of the truck. "So, what do you think?"

"Of what?"

"Your homecoming present."

Bella's confused expression gives way to total shock. "This?" she asks, pointing at the Chevy.

"Just bought it off Billy here."

"Don't be modest, Dad," I chide, elbowing him in the side. "He's had Jake working on this for ages, now."

"I, er, totally built the engine for you," Jake says shyly. "Come on!" Bella replies happily, placing her own hands on the truck. "Oh my gosh…this is perfect, are you joking me?"

She scrambles to hoist herself up into the driver's seat and nearly takes my head off with the door. Jake quickly makes his way over to the passenger door and sits inside.

"Told you she'd love it," Billy says to Dad. "I'm down with the kids!"

I wrinkle my nose at him in distaste, and Dad rolls his eyes. "Oh yeah, dude. You're the bomb."

"I hope you both know we don't talk like that anymore," I say smartly. "And I mean we as in young people, something neither of you have been in a really, really long time."

"Oh, she's got jokes now, does she?" Billy responds with a laugh. "I know she doesn't get that from you, Charlie."

My smile flickers, but it's back on my face, full and beaming, before Dad can say anything else. "Oh I dunno, Billy, Dad's got plenty of jokes about you."

He laughs again, and for a moment, it allows me to forget the unknowing, underlying sting of the comment he left behind.

Billy's right - I don't think I got a sense of humor from my Dad, either.

But I definitely didn't get it from my mother.

It's late in the evening, and I'm sitting up in my bed with a DVD playing on the small TV in the corner of my new room. It's a compilation of recordings Coach made for me- all of my soccer games from eighth grade and the past season rolled onto one little disk, filmed from high up in the stands to capture every angle of the field. I can see my team number – 5, ironed onto a blue and yellow jersey, even from the distance as I watch every move I've made.

It's weird, I think, to watch yourself on a screen. But Coach says there's no better way to know myself than to see myself in action, no better way to improve than by highlighting every imperfection so I can become the best player I can be. Think of it like homework, he'd said when he'd given it to me months ago. Your job is to study YOU.

So I do. I've seen the disc a million times, but I still wince at some of my own sloppy footwork, cringe at missed opportunities. I see what Coach means now, by watching myself. Practice isn't the only thing that makes perfect- perfect makes perfect.

It's my job as the baby on the team to make sure the other older girls don't view me as anymore of a weak player than they already do. It's important that I'm the best, because being anything less than that means being benched. It means being discarded. Forgotten.

I already have a whole lifetime of that, anyway.

A knock at my door rings me out of my thoughts, and I look over to see Bella standing with slumped shoulders. There's a small box in her hands and her cheeks are a little red, which immediately piques my interest.

"Bella," I say curiously. "What's wrong? Is it the room?"

My sister looks a little thrown off by my questions, and after a second of lapsed confusion, she shakes her head vehemently. "Wha-no. Nothing's wrong. The room is…great. Everything's great."

"Oh. Okay, good," I breathe out with relief.

"Yeah," she answers noncommittally. Her eyes wander to the TV. "What're you watching?"

"Myself."

"W-What?"

I glance at the screen and then back to her, remembering Bella's not exactly a "sports-person" as she said earlier. "My coach says it'll help me, to watch my old games and stuff. To be better, y'know?"

She nods, but I can tell she doesn't. I can hardly blame her, it is a little weird. "Is this…what you do, every night?" Bella asks.

I shrug a little defensively, and I grab the remote to press pause. "Just during the season," I lie. My eyes dart towards the box again, and I notice it's gift-wrapped. She catches my straying eyes, and walks into my room, extending it out towards me. "It's…for you," she explains. "Mom felt bad that she, uh, missed your last birthday. So she wanted me to give this to you."

My eyebrows shoot up into my hairline- my birthday was all the way back in October, so I'm a bit baffled by the unexpected present. Mom is pretty forgetful, and my fifteenth was hardly the first time she hadn't remembered a birthday of mine. Why didn't she just send it? I think to myself a little bitterly.

I quickly shake my head of my thoughts and take it from her hands. "Oh."

Bella lets out a light laugh, and she gives me an obvious nod. "You can open it now, if you want."

And I do want. I want to see what's inside, I want to know if my mom saw whatever she's gifted me and thought of me and me alone. I want to see the belated birthday present and feel, without any shroud of doubt, that she knows me well enough to know what I'd want.

Something inexplicable stops me. I hold the box in between my palms like it's made of glass and stare down at the yellow wrapping paper like it'll somehow provide me with an answer. "Yeah. Of course."

My fingers don't budge an inch. It feels like the same apprehension as before, the kind that I'd felt as we waited for Bella at the airport.

I'm afraid of my own reaction. What if it's not something I like? What if I hate it?

My sister seems to notice my own failed excitement, and she backsteps until she's looming in the doorway. "But no pressure, or anything," she blurts out. "I…I, uh, think there's a gift receipt in there. In case you don't like it."

I look up from the box and give her a small, grateful smile. "Thanks, Bella. I'm sure it's great."

She nods awkwardly and tucks her hands behind her, and then lifts a thumb towards the hallway. "I'm just gonna…"

"Yeah. Night, Bella."

"Night, Sophie," she replies. She looms for another second, and I glance at her. "I can, uh, give you a ride to school tomorrow, if you want."

I let out a light laugh. "Yeah, that'd make sense, I guess."

"Why would that make sense?"

"Because we'll be going to the same school," I explain. Her face is still very much blank, so I sigh. "I'm in high school now, remember?"

"Right. Yeah, no, I can drive us. From now on," she says, her features giving way to something a little forlorn.

"Are you…nervous? About tomorrow, and everything," I ask her, attempting at further conversation. I'd probably be pretty nervous if I was starting a whole new school the day after I moved to a town I haven't been to in years, but Bella just shrugs.

"Just don't want any attention, is all."

"You're new. You'll get all sorts of attention, I'm pretty sure."

My sister looks a little defeated, if not unsurprised, at the news. I hurry to find something else to say. "But we'll try to be discreet. And from now on, you and me, trips to school."

"From now on. Sounds good to me."

Bella lifts a palm in a slight wave as she retreats back to her own bedroom, and as soon as she's out of eyesight, I scramble across my bed and carefully shut the door. I walk back to where the gift is waiting, and my eyes scan over it like a bomb ready to go off.

I crawl back under my covers and place the box in my lap, and carefully, I rip at the wrapping paper until the cardboard is resting under my fingertips. Something like hope surges in my chest, something like expectation, and I wrestle the top off until my eyes are met with a sea of white tissue paper.

Inside is a charm bracelet- delicate, pale gold, a few trinkets clipped onto individual chain links. My initials, SOS, a tiny golden cactus, a butterfly, a yellow bird. I lift up with my fingers and waste little time in fastening it around my wrist- it's a little loose but it fits, and with a small shimmy of my hand, the tinkling of the charms clicking against each other brings a smile to my face.

It's beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful gift my mother's ever given me, not that there's been many memorable ones.

I go to take the rest of the wrapping paper out of the gift, already thinking that I'll keep the cardboard box simply as a memento, when I pull out the gift receipt. Nosily, I look to see if I can identify a price, but it's been intentionally blacked out with a Sharpie. Smart, I think.

But as my eyes trail down, I notice that in the payment details, something that definitely should've been etched from my eyesight has been forgotten.

DATE: 03/04/05

SWAN, BELLA

My mouth fills with something sour, and I bite at the inside of my cheek. Oh, I think. Oh.

The sudden arrival of my belated birthday gift makes a lot more sense now. It was bought a week and a half before today, and it wasn't bought by Mom at all. I crumple up the wrapping paper, receipt along with it, and stand up to throw it harshly in the small trashcan in the corner.

I make my way back over to my bed and shut off the TV, throw my covers over my lower half, and turn on my side. My fingers snake their way up to my bracelet-clad wrist, stroking at the charms softly as I lay in the dark.

It's a gift from Bella, then, I force myself to think. I don't want to be sad – not for myself, not for Bella, who went out of her way to get me a gift and lie to me about it in the first place. It's a sister-gift, I tell myself.

It's amazing, I realize as I drift off to sleep, that despite how much is changing, some things still remain the same.

A/N: Hello everyone! Thank you for taking the time to read my fic, the first two chapters are up! Just to clarify the content rating, I've rated it M because this fic will deal with a lot of mature themes, and I will use TWs at the beginnings of each chapter as necessary to give you all the heads-up you need. But to be very clear, Sophie is fifteen for the first round of chapters and I will NOT be writing anything explicit while she is. Please leave a review if you have any thoughts! xoxo