Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

As always, my beta The Real Teacher worked her magic on this chapter and made it look pretty. Thank you!

Grace

~ Part three ~

Eyes staring back at me. Empty eyes. Soulless eyes. They made my blood turn cold as I ran through a seemingly endless corridor, lined on both side with robed figures, masked and standing motionless and I sped towards the sound.

They didn't help me as I knew they wouldn't. They belonged to him.

But I couldn't let my thoughts linger on them, not when every bone in my body told me to run towards the door at the end. Run towards something – I didn't know what – that seemed to be so important my life depended on it.

Finally, when I'd almost given up hope, I crashed through the door, the sweet sounds of a lullaby tingling though the room as I noticed a figure standing over an elaborately crafted crib in the middle of the room.

"No!" I screamed, panic making me forget everything around me. "Leave her alone!"

His laughter filled the air, his cold, dead, eyes zoning into me as he picked up the baby – my baby – from the crib. "You cannot have her, Isabella," Aro's sickly voice chuckled. "She's mine. Mine alone."

"No!" My cry reverberated through the room as I shot up, my chest heaving with labored breaths as I slowly started to come down from my nightmare.

"Bella?" Edward mumbled sleepily. "What's wrong, baby?"

"Nothing." I sighed, lying back down as his arms enveloped me in comfort, love and warmth. "Just a bad dream."

"Hmm," he hummed, lazily kissing my cheek. "Go back to sleep, baby."

I chuckled, settling back into his arms even though I knew that it would be a long time before I could get back to sleep – if I could. Over the weeks I'd gotten so used to having nightmares about the Volturi that I'd stopped even mentioning them to Zafrina. This one, however, was different.

I sighed, leaning my forehead against Edward as I listened to his long, even breaths. There had never been a child before. What did it mean?

I lay awake for about an hour until finally, at six a.m. I'd had enough and slowly started extricating myself limb for limb from Edward's hold, making sure not to wake him up in the process.

The boy needed his sleep after last night.

I chuckled, my body sore and thoroughly worked over as I made my way over to shower, washing away the remnants of last night's 'christening party' before heading downstairs to get started on breakfast.

It turned out I was just in time, a very chipper Charlie and a headshaking Sue arriving promptly at seven, just as I finished my first batch of waffles.

I snorted as dad strutted into the kitchen with his usual police-chief swagger. "You weren't kidding when you said you wanted to make an early start!"

"When have I been known to kid?" he shrugged, sinking his teeth into one of my waffles. "Where's lover boy?"

"He's still asleep, I think," I mumbled, hiding my telltale blush behind my hair as I rather thoroughly beat the eggs before dunking them into the skillet to properly scramble them.

"He's awake, thank you very much," Edward's scratchy voice sounded from the doorway before the man himself walked in, clad in nothing but a pair of boxers.

He strode up to the fridge, confidently and apparently unaware of the three people staring back at him, as he fumbled around for a milk bottle, groaning as he took a few long pulls straight from the bottle before finally looking around him. "What?" he shrugged as he took in our looks of shock. "This is my house. I can walk around however the bloody hell I want!"

I snorted, taking in the looks on Charlie and Sue's faces.

I guess this just went to show that you could take the boy out of the asshole but you could never take the asshole out of the boy.

Or something like that.

"Does he always do that?' Dad grumbled, narrowing his eyes at Edward's retreating form.

I shrugged. "He's not really a morning person."

"Don't go there, Charlie," Sue warned before my dad could say something else. "If we're going to talk about nasty behavior, I've got a thing or two to share about you as well."

Dad looked suitably scolded, a small grunt leaving his throat as he took a sip of his coffee. That or he was just afraid of what Sue might have to say about him.

And, to be honest, so was I.

Fortunately from that point on breakfast passed without further incident, dad and Edward getting on remarkably well as Sue and I exchanged idea for some artwork of hers to go in our backyard.

By the end, when everyone had had their fill, Sue expressed an urgent need to see the backyard one last time to 'let it imprint on her mind', a request Edward was all too happy to fulfill.

"Way subtle." I rolled my eyes as I watched them walk out onto the deck.

Dad chuckled. "You should have known. Subtlety has never been Sue's strong suit."

"Yeah." I sighed, the atmosphere in the room suddenly getting very stifled.

Dad seemed to feel it to, his long, lanky frame tethering in the background as I packed the dirty plates into the dishwasher, his hands plucking nervously at his moustache.

"So I guess this is it, huh?"

I yelped, my head meeting with the roof of the dishwater as I jolted up in surprise. "Yeah," In nodded, rubbing the back of my head. "I guess so."

"I left a care package in the hallway," dad announced. "Just the usual stuff…if you need refills, please let me know."

I snickered, knowing that in the world of Charlie Swan, a care package consisted of a can of pepper spray, a pocket sized stun gun and a list of all emergency phone-numbers in the area. "Thanks dad, but I think Edward will be taking excellent care of me."

He huffed, looking out the window at Edward showing my stepmom around the yard. "You think that, huh?"

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "Don't go there, dad. I thought you and he had worked things out?"

"Just because I don't think he's such a lousy prick anymore doesn't mean that I trust him with the most precious thing in the world."

I snorted, rolling my eyes at him. "So you're not giving him your remote control. I think he'll be able to live with that."

"Don't get smart with me, young lady," he grumbled. "If you're gonna be livin' out here, so far away from your folks and the people you know, it's my duty to make sure the people you're with have your best interest at heart and will be as committed to you as your family is."

The slight hint of nervousness as well as the words he so obviously chose with great care finally made me put two and two together. "Last night when you and Edward were out on the back porch," I started, dad swallowing hard as I rounded on him. "You didn't happen to try and pressure him into proposing, did you dad?"

"I…erm….I might have….." he fumbled.

"Oh my God!" I groaned. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Mind your language, young lady," he warned me. "And just so you know, I didn't so much pressure him as ask him what his intentions were."

"You pressured him." I shook my head, having a pretty good idea of how that conversation might have gone. "Well, just so you know, dad,

His look of disbelief would have been comical if I wasn't so angry. "You….what?"

I'm not ready to be married or even engaged just yet," I explained. "Now I understand that you would like to see a ring on my finger to assure you of his commitment to me but I'm already quite sure of that without a big-ass shiny diamond on my finger. If I wasn't do you really think I would have moved out here with him? Do you really think I'm that naïve?"

Dad looked as if I'd just kicked his puppy. Repeatedly. "Erm…..no?"

"I thought so!" I huffed, though most of my anger had long since left the premises. "So please get back to catching real bad guys and leave my Edward alone. I'm starting to think he knows me better than you do, dad."

He held up his hands in surrender. "I'm trying here! It's not easy, knowing your little girl is all grown up and moving away from you," he spoke; his voice low and laced with sadness.

"You could always come visit us," I insisted, suddenly the thought of being so far away from my dad – my daddy – making me feel awfully homesick. "I mean…..it's not long until you retire and could come here to fish. I'm sure you could do some very good fishing out here in the bay….."

Dad chuckled, listening bemused as I rambled on. "I know Edward isn't much of a fisher but I'm sure that if you teach him he could learn and….."

"Nah." Dad shook his head. "That boy is much too antsy to ever make a good fisherman. Besides….I'm leaving you behind in some very capable hands. You'll be alright without your old man hovering all over you like a nuisance."

I jumped into his arms, burying my head in soft, worn plaid and old spice as I sobbed, suddenly transported back to the times when I was a little girl. "I'm going to miss you, daddy!"

"I know, sugar," he replied, awkwardly patting me on the back. "I'm going to miss you too."

"Charlie?" I looked up to find Edward and Sue standing in the doorway, both of them wearing matching smiles. "Shouldn't we be getting underway?"

Dad nodded, looking at the clock. "Yeah, I think we'd better get going."

As we stood there, waving goodbye, I felt less sadness than I had expected. I knew I was going to miss my dad like crazy but this was a new chapter in my life and I knew that, had things gone differently – had I never met Edward and lived my life oblivious to there being such a thing like the Volturi – I would probably still have had to move from Seattle.

I mean, look at what happened to all of my friends. Rose and Emmett had already moved to New York after Rose had accepted a job – a dream job – with a major newspaper and in a couple of weeks Angela was going to follow Ben as he'd start his PhD at Duke.

No, this was a new page turned in our lives; a fresh start. Feeling sorry about everything I left behind just wasn't going to cut it.

See you next week!