A/N: So... Don't ask me why I think this is a good idea whilst I'm partway through an ultra-long HP FF, but I'm thinking of challenging myself to write a chapter of this story every day or two (possibly three) for the next few weeks at least, and see how far we get. Would anyone read it that often if they're slightly shorter chapters like this one, or should I limit it to posting a longer one once a week or so?
Please tell me if you want me to post Carys' playlist as well - I won't lie, I spent a very enjoyable hour putting together a collection of music that was popular in England when I was younger... Totally did it for the benefit of the story... Definitely just for that...
Chapter Three - Forks, September 2003
Carys had been in America for nearly a week and a half before her step-father's parents, still living in Seattle at the time, had relented one night over dinner and agreed that it might just be a good idea for her to visit her new home in Forks. Even that was only with the promise that she'd come back and see them in a couple of months when her parents made their yearly visit.
Carys couldn't get away fast enough.
It wasn't that she didn't like them, she thought to herself the next morning as she toggled the wing mirror of the old car she'd spent too much of her savings on a couple of days before. It was just that she was desperate to get to Forks - desperate to see it, to experience it, to get rid of that feeling which had grown from the pit of her stomach and made her constantly anxious. She waved to the older couple on the porch and smiled gently as she drove off, trying to ignore how strained the small vehicle was from her luggage and books, focusing on how she was only about 4 hours away from knowing if this was a good decision or not.
It had worried her when she'd heard how little work there seemed to be in Forks, but she'd worked a variety of jobs during her A-Levels and at uni, so she was sure she'd work something out. After all, she told herself, Port Angeles is only an hour away. That's nothing really, takes that long to get across London. She could always look for something there and commute back and forth if she needed to.
Still, she hoped by some miracle there was something she could grab in Forks itself. Carys had visited Port Angeles with her parents on one of their trips to visit Findlay's older relatives on her first trip to America, and Forks looked much more her style. Or Seattle. Just... Not Port Angeles.
There was something about it which told her she wouldn't like to spend every day there, and the thought of commuting an hour each way to a place she didn't really like, just so she could stay in a house she didn't know yet, had almost made her abandon everything and hop back on a plane before she'd told herself to buck up and not let her fears take over again.
No, she thought as she followed signs and the map lying open on the passenger's seat beside her. No, it'll be alright. Once I'm there, everything will settle in me. If it doesn't work out, it can be a holiday. If it does, I'll just roll with it.
Her smile had faltered as she left Findlay's parents' house and fallen completely when she'd left Seattle, but she couldn't help but grin when she popped her driving playlist into the surprisingly good car stereo - which, she had to admit had been the main reason she'd gone for that particular car over others - and pressed play.
She always found it difficult to feel too bad when she was singing along to what she called good music.
When she arrived in the small town (though, she couldn't remember ever seeing a town as small as that), Carys understood immediately why some people might think a place like Forks could be boring. She expected it wasn't too exciting in general, and probably wouldn't be the most fun place to grow up, but for some reason, to her, it was brilliant. As she passed by the houses and shops lining the main route across town, she was captivated by how alien the town was to the place she'd grown up.
Wooden houses, mountains, a forest that seemed to go on forever... The town seemed almost fake - as if she'd stepped onto a film set or a novel rather than real life. Everything was so green and brown - it seemed to her as her eyes lit up and she tried desperately to take in everything she could whilst still focusing on her driving that it was almost as if the town somehow blended into the nature around it.
She always struggled to explain to her step-father's elderly relatives who'd never left Washington just how Seattle was different to London in the ways that mattered, but Forks was a world away from either of them.
She loved it.
It was all she could do not to jump up and down in her seat.
There weren't many cars on the road, so she could have got away with it, but she settled for gripping her steering wheel and making a shrill sound through gritted teeth as she grinned. She didn't really want anyone to see her dancing in her car and for it to get around that she was a bit strange or anything. After all, she was already going to be an outsider in a town with less than 3500 people, and she fully intended to settle there for the time being.
All thoughts of running back home with her tail between her legs fled as she made her way further across town and followed the directions she'd been forced to memorise by Findlay's dad. Even if she had some doubts, leaning forward to check the house numbers written on mailboxes of all things, they would have flown in the face of the house her parents had decided to rent her.
A two-storey wooden building, much like all the others in the town, the small house sat innocuously blending into its surroundings on the edge of town.
Carys could also see why a house like that wasn't necessarily worth too much to some people - but equally why it was worth so much to her already.
Parking the small car in the driveway, she took a deep breath. She squealed as she turned off the engine and the music died around her, then drew her tightly clenched fists to her chest and gave in to the temptation to bounce in her seat before taking another deep breath and pretty much launching herself out the car.
Her hands shook as she fitted the key into the lock and turned it, but she waited until she was inside and the door was firmly shut behind her before falling back against the wood and letting out a huge sigh of shock.
In time, she'd come to take the small house for granted - would forget the excitement she felt that day as she jumped around the sparsely furnished lounge and tiny kitchen. She wouldn't remember running up the stairs and bursting first into the bathroom, and then the bedroom facing the street. She would get used to the fact that it was the biggest room she'd ever had, would see it as nothing other than a place to lie awake at night until she eventually fell into an exhausted slumber...
But in that moment as she danced around her new bed in the best mood she'd been in for months, in blissful ignorance that she was being watched from the treeline by an equally excited Alice Cullen, she couldn't imagine ever feeling anything other than love for her new home.
A/N: Carlisle is coming next chapter (and we'll also see some moments from his POV scattered through the story), but this will be a slow burn fic at first.
P.S., reviews are much appreciated... I'm just going to hide from the shame now.
