|| CHAPTER ONE ||

Here..
we've come to the end of our winding road
no one knows..
the reasons my eyes had til now been closed..
still you constantly, openly, stripped of me my deepest love
built on promises you never kept.. so just stay gone
There you are.. broken.. fake it

- For The Taking, Blackout

He flopped down in his favorite recliner and turned on the television, intent on watching a few mind numbing hours of sports. Being a confirmed bachelor who was living alone, Charlie Swan often got to do this on nights he wasn't needed at the station.

He enjoyed it, but all in the same, he dreaded it.. His daughter, Bella, was off living in some remote town in Alaska, she'd been living there since she'd married the jerk that Charlie now called son, Edward Cullen, and had his first grandchild.

Aria, his other daughter, the youngest in the set of twins by about 5 or 6 minutes, give or take, she lived in Biloxi and went to some college there. When she wasn't in class, she was working at a local hospital where she had an internship, or doing community service, which she seemed to like doing, she'd always liked to help people who needed it. As far as their conversations went, the last one they'd had, which was around Friday of the week before this one, she seemed okay..

He sensed unhappiness, but he didn't call her out on it. She hardly had anything to do with any of them anymore, she hadn't since she'd made the move to Biloxi almost three days after her high school graduation. He'd never understood why she couldn't go to Port Angeles University, live there, with him, and intern at the hospital in Forks, but he'd begrudgingly let her go.

After all, she'd been nowhere near the handful Bella turned into after she met the Cullen guy she wound up marrying and Charlie trusted his daughter Aria to make grown up decisions, take care of herself.. It'd always been Bella he'd worried about because she couldn't make a decision correctly to save her life, this much became apparent when she actually married Edward Cullen.. Right after her own graduation, forgoing any and all hopes and expectations that he and Renee had for her.

She seemed content too, she called a lot, they were closer now than they had been in a while, actually.

What bugged him was why Aria seemed distant now. Why she'd seemed distant for the better part of almost 3 years... He got the feeling that something happened that he hadn't been made aware of, as was usually the case with Bella's little 'secrets'.

Nothing like discovering your daughter wasn't even a living person anymore to make you wonder where you went wrong, really, and he hated that she'd thrown her life away on Edward, but in the same token, he was happy that she finally seemed happy, she finally seemed at peace with herself.

Aria got the brunt of his worries now, even if he didn't voice them to her when they spoke on the phone. She'd always been the blunt daughter, the daughter who would not hesitate to come to her parents if she got into something over her head.

It'd rarely happened, but he knew Aria (or he liked to think he did, lately, with all these new discoveries about the world he lived in, he just wasn't too sure of anything anymore) and he wanted her to know he trusted her, that he was letting her at least give this college in another state thing a proper try.

Tonight though, as he settled into his supposedly mindless few hours of sports television, he found himself plagued with the urge to at least call Aria and see if she were as okay as she claimed to be the last time they spoke..

Something about the way her voice cracked while they'd been talking kept sticking at him, kept making his paternal 'spidey senses' tingle, for lack of a better term.

Something had been off with Aria and that's what made him stand and walk towards the phone that sat on it's charging base right next to his gun and badge on the table in the hallway nearest his front door. He picked it up and held it, was about to dial Aria's number when the phone rang in his hand.

"Hello?"

"Dad? I... I want to talk to you.. You're still up, right?" Aria asked nervously as she pulled a black Eclipse convertible onto the street her father lived on, the street she never thought, no the street she'd sworn to herself she'd never lay eyes on again because of everything that happened and all the negativity there..

But Bella had been the sole cause of all the bad vibes and Bella was gone now.. And Aria?

She needed stability, she needed support and she wanted to fix her relationships with her family.. She'd already spent a few days in Florida with Renee and Phil, then a few in Alaska with Bella and her husband, their family, and now, she had one place left to go..

Her final destination, actually.. She was going to tell her father everything, starting with why she left and why she wanted to come home.. And she was doing this in the hopes that he'd understand and not be disappointed in her.

Both her mother and her twin sister seemed to think he wouldn't, but Aria hadn't ever really gotten herself in quite this deep before.. She sighed as her father said "I'm s till awake, why?"

"Because I'm about to pull into the driveway, Dad.I came... I mean I want to come home.. It's not forever, I just... Things didn't go like I hoped.. Nothing I planned on doing worked out for me.. things went horribly wrong, actually.."

Charlie sighed and said quietly, "I knew there was something wrong with you the last time we talked. I'm gonna go cut on the porch light and unlock the place. This is home, Aria.. Why in the hell would you think you have to ask if it's okay for you to come back?"

"I just.. I figured that maybe I'd be in the way or something.. I don't honestly know, Dad.. I don't know much of anything right now and I thought I knew it all when I left." Aria said as she took a few deep breaths and stopped the car in front of the house, got out on very shaky legs.

She was afraid and hurt and alone and bitter.. She'd literally lost everything a girl could lose in the space of a week or so.. things had happened to her that she'd never thought she'd be stupid enough to be sucked into.. But when she finally realized what was going on and just what was at stake... She wasted no time in getting out of a nightmarish situation..

She was thinking about more than just herself now, after all.

She'd already made one mistake too many for this baby she carried. She didn't want to completely make a mess of things before it came into the world.

"You can do this.." she muttered as confidently as she could muster before walking into the house and hugging her father. Th e second his arms were around her, everything came pouring out.. And by the end of it, she felt more than a little relieved that it was finally all out there.

Charlie studied his daughter intently and said calmly, "But you're done.. Right? With this Adam jerk?"

She nodded and said quietly, "I'm not raising my kid in that. You and Renee didn't raise me and Bella in a bad situation, sir, I can handle this alone."

"You won't have to.. You're my daughter and I'm going to be right here with you.. Just like the time I tried to teach you and your sister how to ride the bikes we got you without training wheels.. Remember how scared you were? And what I told you?"

Aria nodded solemnly and then biting her lower lip she sighed as she said "I talked to Renee and to Bella.. I.. I just thought maybe I should fix everything.. Maybe it was time I stopped running and started dealing with things.. I mean I've tried the running thing, look how far it got me."

Her father nodded and said quietly, "So.. Do you know what you're having yet?"

"A little boy. I was going to wait, but when the doctor said that I was far enough along that she might be able to pick up gender in a sonogram, I went for it.. The doctor said that I was going to have a little boy.." Aria admitted, pausing to take a sip of the tea her father had obviously poured for her just after she'd hung up with him before arriving at his house.

He nodded and smiled then said "Don't worry.. I'm going to support your decision. And I'm going to help you as much as I can." and hugged her against him.

"So.. It's okay, right? Me moving back in here?"

"Did you really have to ask that?" Charlie asked his daughter as a wolf howled in the distance. Aria rubbed her arms and said quietly, "I see they're still doing the patrol thing." as Charlie nodded and said "Apparently so.. I mean the others, yeah.. Jacob's gone, he's been gone for almost 2 years now."

Aria nodded quietly and for a split second, she wondered what he was doing right now, if he was happy, if his life was at least a little better than her own had turned out to be.

And she really wondered what if she'd stuck around? What if she'd fought harder to make him notice her and want her?

But she quickly and bitterly put those thoughts out of her head.

The wolf gave one more long howl and she and Charlie started to get engrossed in a game on tv, laughing when her father raised a brow and said "When did you become a sports fan?"

Aria shrugged and then said casually, "I went to a few minor league baseball games.. Remember? That's kinda how I met Adam the asshole."

"Yeah.. And I wish I could get my hands on that little jerk now. I wanted to at Thanksgiving when you called and I heard him mouthing off in the background about how it made no sense for you two to stay here for a week or two."

"Yeah, I wish I'd been smart enough to see how controlling he was then. I never would have wasted the time.." Aria admitted as she sighed heavily and then stood and said "I'm gonna go up to bed.. Good night, Dad."

He'd only intended on coming back just long enough to tell Sam and the others his decision to remain a wolf and never shift back to human form... But then he'd caught this cotton candy sweet scent on the late evening breeze and naturally, the wolf in him demanded he follow the trail of this scent.. As he did, he found himself going back over what he'd heard Sam thinking earlier, about what Bella apparently made a special call just to tell Sam..

Some vision or something Alice had, Jacob didn't knowand personally didn't care. Being a wolf was easier than being a human, really. He didn't have to love someone who either didn't love him in return, or wasn't there for him to love.

Because he'd realized too late, just hearing her name, just hearing that she was gone now, living in Biloxi or something last he heard, that somewhere along the way, somewhere during the crazy roller coaster ride that had been his up and down thing with Bella.. He'd fallen for her non identical twin sister, Aria. And when he'd finally decided to tell her, and he'd actually imprinted on her, he showed up at Charlie's house exactly an hour too late.

That'd been almost 3 years ago, maybe closer to two and she hadn't set foot back in Forks since.. He personally thought that maybe it was the shock of discovering what he was and the constant seeing Bella with him, the way he seemed to always wind up smack in the middle of Bella's needy crap.

After she left, he'd distanced himself from all of them, pack included. He wanted no part in protecting anything like the Cullens or Bella.. He'd personally rather rip them all limb from limb and burn them now. But apparently, whatever Bella called specifically to tell Sam Uley earlier now had the entire pack out in the woods, sesarching for him.

And currently, he stood in the treeline just near Charlie Swan's house. And the smell was heavy, sweet.. It was almost intoxicating, really, and his mouth wouldn't stop watering.. The upstairs light in Bella and Aria's old room came on and the shadow cast by the solid blind over the window was enough to make him groan to himself as he watched her.

He knew it had to be Aria, the tags on the car nearby had a Mississippi plate. But the question remained... What on earth was she doing home?

And why was her smell so sweet and heavy?

The blind came open and he saw her s taring out the window.. Her eyes looked red almost like she'd been crying. Before he could howl again, the blind was shut and the light was off.

"Guess I'll have to go find Sam, the bastard, if I want to know what the actual fuck is going on and what it's got to do with me." he mumbled to himself as he phased back to human form and hurriedly ran to a house nearby, stole some jeans and a t shirt.

He hadn't been home in almost 3 years.. But tonight he was coming home.. If this was one of Bella's games, he'd kill her..

But smelling Aria's scent again after all this time just confirmed it.. Aria was his.. She was supposed to be his and naturally, he'd thrown it all away, stupidly.

He'd let her leave without any real kind of fight.

Hell, he'd even left himself.

But he was back now.. And so was she.. maybe things would finally get fixed?