Bella sighed as she looked out the plane windows at the dark, wet, airport. It was about dinner time, but that didn't keep the sun up around here, she could see the sun was almost completely down already. She'd be getting out soon and she was sure that her limited 'winter' wardrobe was not going to cut it. Not with a body used to Arizona heat. Even as the plane was riding down the tarmac, Bella pulled the borrowed jacket around her body. Phil had been nice enough to lend her his jacket, when he saw she didn't have anything warm enough. It was too large by way too much, but there were bound to be warmer coats available to buy here than in Phoenix, so it would be okay for a day or two. She'd rather look stupid than be cold.

She didn't pack much, since not much was good for this weather, and she wasn't going to move just yet. Everything for her two week trip fit into her carryon luggage, except for the large coat that earned her a few odd looks. It would be embarrassing if she let it be, but she was determined not to let it be. The airport was small and she was able to see the Forks police car just outside the doors, really, just outside the doors. The cold wouldn't have time to get her if she moved quickly.

Charlie was standing outside of the car, and he smiled when he saw her. Bella had been shown a picture of the man, but the police car was the big hint that she had the right one. "Hey Bells." He smiled and took her bag from her hand. It was tossed into the trunk, without any extra words about it. Bella slipped into the warm car and closed herself inside with a sigh as the cold barely touched her.

"Good flight?" He asked, while studying her. He too, lingered on the large coat.

"As good as it could be. I had to rush to catch my connection." Bella told him and he nodded, while pulling away from the sidewalk.

"You look good." He muttered and Bella could see the shyness in him. He knew she didn't remember him, or anything really, so to her, he was a stranger she'd had a few brief conversations with. He didn't realize she wasn't his Bella, but then she wasn't planning on telling anyone that again. It didn't go well when she did. She didn't want to get readmitted to a hospital. At some point they'd just claim she was mental, and it wasn't the waterslide accident at all.

"Thanks." She returned the comment and then found that the book was right. Charlie was perfectly content to drive in silence. Silence was strange after so many months with Renee, that woman didn't like silence. Bella found herself starting to relax, in a way she couldn't around Renee. Charlie wasn't pushing her to remember anything, at least not yet.

"So, school going okay?" He asked as they got onto a freeway.

"It's going good. I'm signed up for my driving test when I get back, and my other grades are all A's or B's." Bella was a little irritated that she was earning a B in a high school class, it was humbling to see how little math she'd retained. Granted her Liberal Arts degree didn't have a heavy math load, but she'd worked up to college level math while she took her other classes and it didn't stick. Too bad she couldn't get a refund on it.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" He appeared to squirm in his seat as he asked that and Bella sighed. His glance at the coat was obvious.

"No," Bella tugged at the coat and let out a sigh. "Renee's boyfriend lent me the coat, I didn't have anything for this weather."

"Oh," He went quiet for a moment, but as he stared out the windshield he muttered after a minute. "If you'll be visiting more often we should really get you a coat."

"I'd like that." Bella spoke slowly and noticed the hint of a smile on Charlie's lips at those words.

"Any boys you're interested in?" He asked and Bella could tell it wasn't gossip. Charlie wanted to know how much he had to worry about her.

Charlie didn't look like he was ready for his daughter to be dating. She also doubted he was ready for this conversation. His 'daughter's' sexuality wasn't really the issue at this moment, the amnesia was, so she wasn't going to open that can of worms now. Especially not when he was driving, she knew better than to do that.

"Most high school boys are self centered pricks." She thought of the boys she'd seen around school, but Edward's name was also floating around in her mind. Charlie's eyebrow rose in surprise. "I don't plan to date this year." She shook her head and considered that. She was thirty-five, or was it thirty-six now, on the inside, but sixteen on the outside. Dating wasn't going to be something she could really see herself doing for a while. She wasn't willing to date teenagers, or pedophiles, so she'd have to wait.

"Oh, well, that's good. No need to rush things." Charlie quickly agreed and Bella watching him release a relieved breath with some amusement. "You hungry? How about we eat at the diner?"

"Sure." Bella smiled at his happy grin. It was undoubtedly one of several meals they'd have there, but Bella didn't really mind eating out all that much. She wouldn't get sick of it in two weeks at least, so she wasn't going to cause any waves about it now.

Dinner was relatively relaxed, as Bella adapted to the lack of need to talk. It was a little strange actually, but he didn't seem to mind the quiet, so she went with it. It was nice not to have to think of things to talk about, because that was a little hard to do.

It was probably eight when they pulled up to the house. Bella found herself opening the doors for Charlie, even though the luggage wasn't that heavy, he'd quickly taken over bringing it in. He took it right up to her bedroom and she followed him in.

Bella glanced around the room. In the books it was hard to visualize this space, but it wasn't too horribly small. The bed was a twin bed, nothing fancy. The lace curtains didn't really do more than obscure the front yard from her view and they looked like they should have been dumped at least two years ago. The light blue walls were that powder blue that fit more with bringing home a baby boy, which was the one shade of blue she hated. There were better blues, and perhaps if she did get to move in she'd redecorate. New paint, new bedding, new curtains and swapping the desk out for a dresser and it would look better in here. Perhaps a headboard and the wood floor needed a little work, but that was beyond her budget or skills at the moment.

It reminded her of the list of work she'd planned to do at the house she never got to buy. She'd been looking forward to decorating it from scratch, and she would have had to because she had been in a studio apartment, the cheapest place she could get and still be in a neighborhood she wasn't scared of, as she saved up to buy a house, so she didn't have much to put in the three bedroom house.

Bella gave Charlie a glance when he stayed and watched her take in the room, rather than wander off like she'd thought he would. "Bells, it being the holidays, well, the police work more, not less. I couldn't really make my guys take all my shifts for your visit." He looked down and she could see the regret in his posture, as he slumped a bit. "I have to work tomorrow."

"That's fine." Bella didn't need to be entertained, but then she thought about being trapped in the house all day. Without a license or a car, or truck in this world, she wasn't getting far. She didn't even have good clothes for this weather. "You think you could pick me up for lunch? Maybe leave me in town after we eat? I could look around, shop, and then meet you after you get off work." Renee did give her some money for some Christmas shopping or for necessities. Renee had refused to let Bella get a job, claiming it was too much for her with her amnesia, and Bella had almost lit into the woman when she did that. Renee treated her like she was part invalid, and part housekeeper and cook, and it really depended on which benefited Renee at the moment. The woman likely didn't even see what she was doing, it was such a habit by the time this Bella arrived.

"That's a great idea Bells." He smiled at her, and then turned to give her the privacy she'd come to expect from him. He didn't push for what she remembered, he didn't linger, he left so she could unpack the few things she'd brought. She could hear the television going on downstairs as she hung up shirts that were already wrinkled in spite of her efforts to prevent that. She was hoping it wouldn't show too much when she wore it, or she'd have to try and hunt down Charlie's iron.

…..

"We were invited to spend Christmas with the Blacks." Charlie told her while they waited for their lunch order at the diner. Bella paused her reach for the water glass as his words hit her. La Push, she wasn't eager to go there. Jacob and Billy Black were family friends though, so she nodded. "I told them about, your, well your problem." Charlie spoke more quietly. "But honestly I don't know that you would have remembered them even before the waterslide mess. You haven't seen them since you were a little girl."

That was the first he'd said of that since she got here and Bella looked up to see his pained eyes. "I'm sure it'll be fine." She said, while envisioning a rather awkward evening with a fifteen year old boy as her own personal shadow. Hopefully it wouldn't happen. She hadn't flirted with the boy, hadn't been overly friendly, so perhaps he wouldn't get attached. When it was some other Bella she was reading about, she'd been Team anyone but Edward, or in some conversations Team Jacob, but now that she was living this life Team Jacob was not on the scoreboard and wouldn't be.

"Good, good." Charlie nodded.

After they ate, Charlie made very sure she knew where and when to meet him. She changed the location to the grocery store and that alone had him blushing, so she didn't elaborate. He handed her forty dollars for "whatever she wanted to eat" quietly, and then wrote his work number down on a napkin for her, but what good would that do? She didn't have a cell phone.

As the police cruiser pulled away, Bella stood looking at the street that was supposed to entertain her for four and a half hours. It wasn't really that promising a prospect, this town had maybe three blocks wide and four blocks long of shops and restaurants, if that. Bella knew the grocery store was a block up from her, because they'd driven past it. Four hours in this was going to be a challenge. She might even know the entire town by the time this day was over, and she had two weeks here. She might as well do this in order, and with as much time as she had she was going to drag it out and look at stores she'd normally just walk right by. At least the excuse of Christmas shopping gave her some small goal. She'd get Renee, Phil and Charlie something.

The cold breeze made her grit her teeth as she made her way to the start of the shops on this block. She'd take them in order, so that she could slip into heated places on a regular basis.

Even trying, she just couldn't make herself look in some of the shops. She still managed to find something for Renee and she had wandered into Newton's outfitters for some fishing ideas for Charlie, but she'd have to sneak a look at what he had before she bought anything. She found she didn't know enough about Phil to find anything and when she got to that point she wandered toward the Grocery store earlier than she'd wanted.

Bella was grateful for the magazine racks, and she camped out there with her grocery cart. It already held bread, peanut butter, jelly, and two books to hopefully help her get through the next shift Charlie had while she was here. Hamilton's Anita Blake series was something she'd just started reading in her own life, and she remembered liking the first few chapters, so she bought the first two books in the series. Hamilton's vampires were a bit more like the norm, which was why someone probably recommended it to her. People had often recommended vampire books to her, even when they didn't know what she read. It was the curse of her name, but after a while she did read a few of them.

The home magazine in her hand was filled with ads, and she could see some of the things she'd planned to put in her own house on their pages. She did her best to push her thoughts about having that house out of her mind and she focused on ideas for that sadly lacking bedroom she hoped to make her own.

The page she was looking at held a vastly better bedroom, but Bella studied the sage colored walls and considered switching to a nice soothing green for the room instead of a different blue like she'd considered. As she studied the picture, thinking there was a lot there she likes, someone cleared their throat softly behind her. "Excuse me, but could you give me a copy of that magazine you're looking at?" A feminine and smooth voice asked, it was a nice voice actually, enough to take note of it.

Bella looked up at the magazine rack in front of her and reached out for another copy. "Sorry, killing time." She explained as she turned to the woman to give her what she asked for. Her jaw dropped just a little as her eyes fell on the woman standing beside a full cart behind her, with a hand held out for the magazine.

The woman's perfect features, caramel hair and heart shaped face were perfect for her. Her skin was very pale, and her eyes were an unusual shade of yellow. Bella barely managed to shut her jaw and swallow as she took in the woman's substantial presence. Esme Cullen was her height, was a distracted thought Bella managed as she slowly handed over the magazine. Esme Cullens also looked just like the description of vampires in the book, and it was a bit startling. Bella hadn't fully, completely accepted the idea that vampires were walking around in this world, even though she'd gotten to the point of accepting that she was reborn into a fictitious person's life.

"Sorry about blocking the way." Bella stammered and glanced back at the magazine rack she'd been blocking after the vampire took the magazine and put it in her own cart, along with cans and boxes of food she'd likely never eat, if everything Bella read was actually true.

"That's quite alright dear." Esme's voice was softer still and Bella looked up with she knew were eyes that were a bit too wide. "It's nice to see young people with an interest in interior design."

"Oh, ah," Bella glanced down at the magazine in her hand, trying to stay in the conversation, but her mind was racing in too many shocked directions. It was hard to do anything but gape. "Thinking about redoing my bedroom." She muttered and glanced back up, even as she curse herself for admitting she wanted that room at Charlie's to be her own when she hadn't told him that.

"Good luck with that then." Esme nodded and then started to push her cart toward the front of the store.

Bella let out a breath she hadn't realized she been holding, "Damn." She whispered. When Esme paused a moment and tilted her head in a way that put the vampires ear facing her Bella blushed, realizing that even the full length of the aisle away she'd been heard. She felt her heart speed up a bit as she realized she had to cover somehow, say something, make that exclamation uninteresting and unsuspicious. "Glad no one else saw me stammer like an idiot, she must think I'm an seriously off balanced." She muttered, hoping it was believable, when what she really wanted to say was 'damn, I can't believe she's real."

A slight smile crossed Esme's lips and Bella decided that her first impulse was the correct one. Now that it was true, there was no way she wanted the vampires to suspect she knew anything. Just in case Esme brought her up to Alice, Bella decided right then and there to never say anything about knowing anything. That would keep Alice in the dark hopefully.

Bella could try to control her emotions, or mask why she felt things, she could probably work around an odd power like Jaspers, and the book had taught her how to work around Alice's. It would only take Edward's creepy power working on her to mess everything up. Bella didn't want to stick out to the vampires, she wanted to blend in, safely.

Meeting a vampire wasn't as cool as she thought it might be once it happened and she realized there were issues to that.