Disclaimer: Still not mine

Chapter 2

It was a change, being back home in Arizona, the heat was a bit of a shock after a month of cold and wet. She'd made her choice though and it was best for all of them. Charlie would be happy if she moved in and she wanted to spend time with him before college. Phil would be happy to have Renee with him on the road and she knew her Mom would be happier travelling with him then stuck in Phoenix with her, they just had to convince Renee of that. It sucked that she'd miss the start of the new school year, but she couldn't leave before the wedding or the party for her birthday that Renee had planned.

"Hey Bella," Phil sat beside her under the shade of the back porch.

She looked at him and smiled. "Hey."

"You sure about this? Moving? It's a big thing."

"I'm sure," she put her book aside. "I want to spend time with Dad before I go off to college and Mom will be happier on the road with you. You get to be newlyweds," she grinned, and he laughed.

"Thank you," he clapped her shoulder, and she shrugged.

"Mom convinced yet?"

"Almost, sorry you'll be transferring over a month in to the new year."

"Better than moving even later like January or March," she shrugged it off. She'd manage, it wouldn't make much difference when it came to making friends since everyone there had known each other all their lives.

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Bella smiled as she saw her Mom in her wedding dress. It was an A-Line V-neck dress that fell to her knees made from chiffon. The cocktail style dress was sleeveless and in burgundy rather than white since it was her second wedding. Bella moved in to help put her Mom's hair up and then did her necklace up as well. "You look great Mom."

"So, do you sweetie," Renee smiled and tucked a stray strand of hair behind Bella's ear.

Bella's dress was similar in style, but her bodice was covered in lace, giving her dress short sleeves and a much higher neckline than her Mom's, it was also lighter in colour, Mulberry rather than Burgundy. Her hair was loose down her back and she wore only earrings and a bracelet.

"Ready?" She grinned at her Mom who nodded.

"Ready." Renee grabbed her small bouquet and they left the bedroom for the car.

The drive to the church didn't take long and soon they were walking down the aisle, Bella as bridesmaid. Phil was in a nice suite, waiting with the Minister at the end, the church full of friends and family. Bella took her Mom's bouquet and stood to the side as vows were exchanged, she was happy for them but in the back of her mind was the question of how long it would last. She didn't have much faith in the institution of marriage.

After the ceremony the party moved to a nearby restaurant and Bella sat beside her new stepfather as speeches were made and then food was served. She watched their first dance together and loved how happy they looked out there. She even danced with Phil once and happily managed to not hurt either of them.

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Bella sighed as she looked through the racks. Even with winter fast approaching the options in Phoenix were rather lacking when it came to clothing that would be useful in Forks. She was leaving a lot of her clothes behind since it never got hot enough to need them. She had hoped to get most of her shopping done here and then just ship it to Charlie's, but obviously that wasn't going to work. Maybe she could convince him to spend the night in Port Angeles, so she could get her shopping done, she was arriving on Friday afternoon, so she had the weekend before school. She didn't want to freeze at school. She had money from working after school jobs, it should easily cover a new wardrobe, maybe even a second-hand car so that she didn't have to rely on Charlie driving her everywhere in the cruiser.

She managed to find a handful of tops that she could use to layer her clothes before heading home to work on packing as well as finish her homework.

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"Is there trouble?" Rosalie asked warily as they spotted the police cruiser and Chief Swan as he walked to the office.

Edward watched him and then smiled slightly from the man's excited thoughts. "No trouble. He's here to enrol his daughter, she'll be arriving in two weeks to finish her last two years here."

"She'll be in our classes," Alice smiled happily, she wanted to know why the girl would be so important to their family.

"Alice?" Edward glanced at her as she took Jasper's hand and tugged him towards the school.

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"We'll be late," she called, hiding her thoughts on her visions, she didn't want anyone to be influenced by what she'd seen. It was all so delicate, and she wanted to make sure nothing happened to ruin things before Bella even arrived. Edward was one of the people who definitely could not know what was going on, she'd seen that much.

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Bella taped up the last box and looked around the empty room that had been hers since they moved to Phoenix when she was eight. She'd miss it, miss the view, but the move was the right thing for everyone. Maybe she would fit in at Forks high? Tomorrow was her last day of school here and then she'd be on a plane.

Her boxes were being picked up in an hour, so they'd probably beat her to Forks, at least she could unpack right away. It'd be fun to find room for everything, her room in Forks was smaller, but she'd manage. She headed downstairs and grinned as Phil walked in with boxes of pizza, no one feeling like cooking or cleaning up the kitchen on her last night. Soon her boxes were on their way to Washington and it was time for bed.

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Charlie opened the door and helped move the boxes up to Bella's room where brand new bedding awaited as well as a computer and printer. They weren't brand new, but they were functional and had been top of the line when originally purchased, Dr Cullen had sold them to him when he'd heard he was looking. He'd been wanting to upgrade his home office and was happy for his old equipment to go to a good cause. Charlie knew he hadn't been charged what they were worth, but he hadn't been able to argue with the good doctor.

Soon the room was filled with boxes, but he didn't open any of them, that would be up to Bella. He glanced at his watch and went to get in the car, it wasn't a long drive to Port Angeles, but he wanted to check into the motel before picking her up. It felt weird spending the night so close to home, but it would save time and gas so that tomorrow she could buy the rest of what she needed.

It didn't take long to check in at the Travelers Motel where he'd booked two rooms for the night. He stored his overnight bag and then drove to the airport to wait for her flight to land.

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"Bella," her mom said, the last of a thousand times, before she got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."

Bella looked at her Mom and felt a spasm of panic as she stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could she leave her loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? Of course, she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still...

"I want to go," she promised, happy it wasn't a lie.

"Tell Charlie I said hi," Renee finally offered, and Bella smiled.

"I will."

"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want, I'll come right back as soon as you need me."

But she could see the sacrifice in her Mom's eyes behind the promise. "Don't worry about me," she urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."

She hugged Bella tightly for a minute, and then Bella got on the plane, and she was gone.

It's was a four hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle and another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, but finally she was collecting her single suitcase and heading out to find Charlie waiting for her with the cruiser. Her primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of her funds, was that she refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slowed down traffic like a cop.

Charlie gave her an awkward, one-armed hug when she made her way out of the airport. "It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he took her suitcase. "How's Renee?"

"Mom's fine, the wedding went off without a hitch. It's good to see you, too, Dad," she smiled as they got in the cruiser.

"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when they were strapped in.

"What kind of car?" She was suspicious of the way he said, "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car."

"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."

Bella just looked at him.

"Well with Billy in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when she didn't respond, "he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."

"What year is it?" She could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hoping she wouldn't ask.

"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine, it's only a few years old, really."

She hoped he didn't think so little of her as to believe she would give up that easily. "When did he buy it?"

"He bought it in 1984, I think."

"Did he buy it new?"

"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties, or late fifties at the earliest," he admitted sheepishly.

"Ch, Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic..."

"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."

"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part she couldn't compromise on.

"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift." Charlie peeked sideways at her with a hopeful expression.

Wow. Free. "You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car."

"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at the road when he said that. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud, she had inherited that from him.

So, she was looking straight ahead as well as she responded. "That's really nice, Dad. Thanks, I really appreciate it."

"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by her thanks.

There was no need for further discussion as he pulled into the motel parking lot. They got settled into their rooms before heading out for dinner and then collapsing into bed for the night.

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Late Saturday afternoon they finally arrived at the house. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was her new, well new to her, truck. It was a faded red colour, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To her intense surprise, she loved it. She didn't know if it would run, but she could see herself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged, the kind you saw at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.

"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now her horrific day on Monday would be just that much less dreadful. She wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.

"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.

They went inside, and he carted her suitcase upstairs and then they got the shopping bags up there as well. Bella looked around, feeling lost at the sea of boxes already in the room, it had looked less when she'd packed it.

"The Sears lady picked up the bed stuff. You like purple, right?"

"Purple's cool, thanks."

"Computer's second hand but still good. You remember Doctor Cullen?" When she nodded he continued. "He was updating his home office and heard you'd need one."

"Thanks Dad, it looks good."

"Right, well, I'll leave you to unpack."

Bella looked around and sighed, sitting down on the bed. At least she had a day before school started. Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven, now fifty-eight, students; there were more than seven hundred people in her junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together, their grandparents had been toddlers together, how could she ever fit in?

She would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak. Maybe, if she looked like a girl from Phoenix should, she could work this to her advantage. But physically, she'd never fit in anywhere. She should be tan, sporty, blond - a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, all the things that went with living in the valley of the sun.

Instead, she was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. Bella had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; she didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating herself, even after years of dance classes and hard work - and harming both herself and anyone else who stood too close.

When she finished putting her clothes in the old pine dresser, she took her bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean up after the days of travel and shopping. She looked at her face in the mirror as she brushed through her tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but already she looked sallower, unhealthy. Her skin could be pretty, it was very clear, almost translucent looking, but it all depended on colour. She had no colour now, which meant digging out her rarely used makeup. She didn't like wearing it, but it would help give her a little colour tomorrow and it was only very light, not much more than tinted moisturiser really.

Facing her pallid reflection in the mirror, she was forced to admit that she was lying to herself. It wasn't just physically that she'd never fit in. And if she couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were her chances in such a small one?

Bella didn't relate well to people her age. Maybe the truth was that she didn't relate well to people, period. Even her Mother, who she was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with her, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes she wondered if she was seeing the same things that the rest of the world was seeing. Maybe there was a glitch in her brain. But the cause didn't matter, all that mattered was the effect. And Monday would be just the beginning.

Sunday she was forced to brave the town since Charlie's shelves were scarily devoid of anything but coffee and beer. She kept her head down as she stocked up on the basics and a few extras to make a good dinner that night. She could hear the whispers, she didn't want to face the stares as well. Did they think she was deaf?

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"Bella Swan starts school tomorrow," Carlisle informed his 'children'.

"A new student, so what?" Rosalie demanded.

"I treated an injury for her when she was visiting. I want you to make sure you're all well fed for tomorrow since she may be in some of your classes, at least Edward and Alice's. Her blood is particularly nice smelling."

"Don't worry Carlisle, nothing bad will happen," Alice assured him before taking Jasper's hand, and he smiled at her. They left to hunt anyway but he could sense it wasn't because Alice worried he would attack the girl or anyone else, it was for time alone.

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The next morning Bella dragged herself out of bed and double checked her messenger bag, a farewell gift from Phil. It was black with an abstract floral design in white and red, and easily fit several notebooks, other school supplies, her wallet, everything she needed. She grabbed a pair of black jeans, underwear, and one of her new long-sleeved tops, it was a medium purple colour. She grabbed a quick shower, braiding her hair back after to keep it out of the way. She then slipped on a pair of hiking boots that she was still breaking in and a light grey wool jumper. She'd put on her make-up and had even slipped on a necklace and a pair of stud earrings in the shape of small white flowers. A bit dressier than normal but it was her first day, everyone would be staring anyway so she might as well look her best. She dumped her bag near the hall closet where her jacket was waiting and went to work preparing breakfast even as Charlie came down in his uniform.

"Thanks Bells. You ready for school? You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep. I had everything packed last night," she shrugged as she dished up bacon, eggs and toast with orange juice.

Charlie downed his and then headed out for his shift. Bella cleaned up a little and then put her jacket on and headed out to her new truck, she was early, but she couldn't stand waiting around in the house any longer.

TBC…