A/N: A little shorter than average, I know, but hey, at least it's posted! Huge thanks to my discord for getting me to write this and giving me some inspiration again, I love all of you crazy fucks so much. Also thanks to all of you readers who are so insanely awesome as well, make sure to reward me with reviews if you get the chance. Let's keep me writing something for a little bit longer, or let me die trying!

Chapter 21

"What do you mean by that?" Tanya demanded, trying to hide her panic.

Rosalie, who already knew from experience how fucked she already was being mated to Bella of all people, only frowned. "Why Carly?"

Charlie huffed. "Carly rhymes with Charlie, obviously. Forget about that shit for now, the problem is Bella. I love that girl more than I ever thought I could love a kid, but even I have to admit she's a stubborn bitch. With reason to be that way, of course, but let's just say she and anything involving love doesn't really mix. You two have a rocky road ahead of you, and I wish I meant the ice cream flavor."

Rosalie blinked once, thrown by the change in demeanor. Charlie looked so serious and thoughtful, wise beyond his years, even. It was hard to think of him as the man who had threatened to scream like a little girl only minutes earlier. She was about to ask him why he was suddenly being nice to them, most likely in a way that would make the man's temper flare again, but Tanya beat her to the punch.

"You don't care that your daughter is mated to two vampires?" Tanya asked softly, a bit concerned about breaking the man away from his thoughts. "I thought the Quiluetes hated vampires."

Charlie dismissed the worry with a grunt. "Nah, I don't give a damn if Bella imprinted on bigfoot, so long as her imprint makes her happy. Not that Bells will let anyone make her happy, if she has anything to say about it…" Charlie trailed off, grumbling nonsense to himself about how much of a brat Bella was for a moment before returning his attention to the two women. "Look, I'm not one of those grumpy 'all vamps are evil' elder types, you hear me? I know from experience that not all vamps are monsters. If it weren't for one vampire I met…" Again Charlie trailed off, but this time it was because he decided to clam up. "Forget about that, we've got more important things to talk about. Like how you two are in for the fight of your life with my daughter."

"Give us some advice then," Rosalie nearly snapped. "Unless you like that Bella is going to make accepting the bond so hard on all of us."

Tanya hid her grimace at the harshness of Rosalie's tone, putting a hand on Rosalie's shoulder to try and keep her calm. She might have wanted to say the same thing to Charlie, but she really didn't want to risk him reacting badly to the point he would threaten them with girlish screams again.

Thankfully, Charlie only appeared amused. "There's no real advice I can give when it comes to Bella. She's a force of nature, even before she became a shifter, and an unpredictable one at that. All I can tell you is that she doesn't react well to people trying to love her, or to loving people herself. I still have a scar from the first time Bella realized she loved me as her father. Bella was only six at the time, but she flipped out with such force I still have scars from the experience. And from quite a few experiences after." Most parents would have sounded ashamed or scared or even worried about how other people would take hearing such news, but not Charlie. He only let out a fond chuckle as he remembered all of the times a young, terrified, and near feral Bella had turned his life upside down.

Tanya couldn't wait until Charlie was done reminiscing to find out more about their situation. The more she heard about how long it would take for Bella to give in to the bond, the more eager she was to hurry up and get on with it. She and Rosalie both needed to figure out what to do to get Bella to open up to the idea of love. "So what does this mean for us? Do we have to keep on pushing until Bella eventually gives in?"

"Oh, that's where things get tough. You push too much, she runs away. You push too little, and she keeps you at a distance. You have to find the perfect balance. Problem is, you'll have no idea what that balance is until you reach it."

Rosalie had enough. Clearly Charlie wasn't going to be of any actual help, and his words only made her more anxious to find Bella and do whatever it took to get through the thick head of the brunette. "Well since you're clearly of no help, we're leaving." She tried not to sound too bitchy toward the man, but she couldn't help it. All of this talk had only gotten her more worked up and admittedly, more concerned about Bella. Not just Bella accepting them, but Bella's past, and some very powerful desires to slaughter whoever scarred her to such a degree.

Tanya grabbed Rosalie before she could do more than take two steps toward the door, stopping her in her tracks. Rosalie shot a glare at Tanya for interrupting her exit, but that glare softened when she saw how conflicted Tanya was. Clearly Rosalie wasn't the only one who wanted to go to their mate that very second.

Tanya turned back to Charlie, doing her best to smooth things over with the man who would one day be their father in law. "I'm sorry, Charlie, we're a bit worked up. Rosalie doesn't mean any harm by it."

"Mmhmm, sure she doesn't." Charlie's face was set in a frown, but his eyes sparkled with amusement. "I can see my daughter has ended up with quite the pair. I'm sure you two have it in you to take her down."

"About that." Tanya hesitated, wondering if this was really something she should ask of Charlie. After all, he was still a Quileute Elder, regardless of his personal feelings. "I hope it's not too much to ask, but if we need someone to help pass messages to Bella or any other member of the pack, could we count on you to do it?"

Charlie puffed up, and for the first time since they told him who they were to Bella, he looked offended. His heart monitor even started to beep much faster than before, almost alarmingly so "Oh hell no. Hell to the goddamn no. You ask me to pass around messages like a goddamn teenager, and then dare to ask me if that's too much for me? I'll have you know I might not be a wolf, but I am Bella's goddamn father. I raised the girl, I'm a survivor!" He let out a huff, jabbing a finger at the two in a way that made Rosalie bristle. "Passing notes ain't too much for me, you hear me? You want my help, you gotta ask for more than that. You want to meet up with my daughter, you tell me where and when, and I'll drag the brat down there myself!" Charlie's voice dropped to a grumble, and as he crossed his arms over his chest, he appeared to almost be pouting. "Too much trouble? Something as easy as that? How old do they think I am? I've got it in me to carry Bella if need be!" He quickly rattled off his phone number so he could "show you brats how 'old' I really am" and told them to call anytime they needed help from someone who could actually handle Bella.

Stunned more by Charlie's attitude than the lengths he would go to help them, Tanya could only stare for a moment before finally speaking, being very careful of her words. "I didn't mean to question how strong you are. I simply asked if it would be too much due to your position as a Quileute Elder."

"Bah!" Charlie spat with a wave of his hand. "I did my best to follow along with what they thought was right, thought it would help my daughter out the most that way, you know? I pleaded for Bella to behave, hoping it would make things easier, and now look at what happened! Did you see what they're doing to my daughter? Did you?" When neither woman answered, he lifted his leg and let it drop back on the bed in his version of a stomp. "Well, did you or not?"

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "He thinks we can see what they've done to Bella on Quileute land why, exactly?" she muttered under her breath, too low for Charlie to hear.

Tanya decided it would be best to keep up her role as the peacekeeper. "No, Charlie, we didn't."

"Well I have. They claim they're doing it because she's almost out of control, but really, they just don't want Bella to thrive. If they really wanted to help her, they wouldn't cripple her and try to keep her in human form, try to keep her from her pack. They're trying to suppress her because they don't like that she's such a great alpha and doesn't bend to them. What they're doing now might as well be torture." Both Rosalie and Tanya's eyes darkened to black at the idea of Bella in pain, Rosalie letting out a hiss that was followed by a low growl from Tanya. Charlie didn't care in the least at their reaction. "There's a few on my side, but not enough to overthrow the verdict. I was actually planning on going over to Bella to tell her that I'd be more than happy for her to go wild again when this happened." He gestured to his current bed ridden situation in explanation.

Tanya frowned, feeling a creeping suspicion as she reached for the patient information, flipping through the sheets. "Right, what are the odds that you would end up stabbed right before you were about to go to Bella."

"You think it was their fault that I got stabbed?" Charlie snorted and shook his head. "Nah, they have nothing to do with it. This is a problem I've been dealing with for years now, well before Bella showed any signs of shifting."

Now Rosalie was suspicious too. "What problem is that, exactly?"

"Bad hand eye coordination," Charlie answered with a snort. But something about the quick answer only made Rosalie more suspicious.

"Right," Tanya agreed with the man, yet her tone made it clear that she didn't believe him. She held up the information chart to Rosalie so she could see what Tanya did, never taking her eyes off of Charlie. "Your coordination would certainly have to be pretty horrible. How else would you manage to stab yourself in the stomach...not once, but twice?"

"Twice, hm?" Rosalie murmured, glaring purposely at Charlie. There was a reason he wasn't telling the truth, and Rosalie knew, without a doubt, that the reason for it had something to do with Bella. Anything that had to do with her stubborn pain in the ass was something Rosalie wanted to know.

Charlie's expression turned hard. For the first time, the man before them actually looked intimidating. "This is my problem, nobody else's."

Tanya didn't want to upset the man further, but something told Tanya that whatever Charlie was trying to hide had to do with Bella. Anything that could be a potential threat to her mate, even inadvertently, wasn't something Tanya was going to ignore. "Charlie, perhaps you should talk to us about this first."

"If this has to do with Bella, it's our problem too," Rosalie snapped the moment Charlie looked ready to tell them to mind their own business once more. She crossed her arms over her chest as she glared heavily at the man. If he hadn't been injured and Bella's father, she would have grabbed him by the collar and threatened to wring his strangely boney looking neck until he gave her the information she wanted.

Charlie's frown lessed, but the protectiveness in his eyes didn't disappear. "Maybe someday I will, but not now." Both vampires were about to argue with him, but his next words struck them silent. "I can't risk it. If it gets back to Bella...it'll destroy her. You two might be her imprints, but the bond isn't complete, and Bella's going to make shit hard as hell for you. Do you really want to run around keeping secrets from her when she's already going to do everything she can to never trust you?"

"I would do anything necessary to keep her out of danger. If that includes keeping secrets, I will." It would be hard, and Rosalie knew she would hate it, but she had to know what Charlie was hiding. If their mate was in danger and got hurt because Rosalie was too afraid to find out what Charlie was hiding, she would never forgive herself.

"Maybe whatever you're hiding won't destroy Bella like you believe it will. She's a strong woman, Charlie. She can handle whatever is thrown at her."

Charlie shook his head, a sad look in her eyes. "She's strong, but just like everyone else on this planet, she has a weakness. In the future, she might be able to handle it, but right now...let's just say I know what this will do to her if it gets out."

"Charlie-"

The human cut Tanya off before she could try to convince him to tell her again. "I said I'm not telling you shit, and that's that. I will do everything I can to protect my daughter, you hear me? Anything. You want the answers that badly, you'll have to pry them from my cold, dead, half empty head. And you!" Charlie whirled on Rosalie, matching her glare with a fatherly glower of his own. "How dare you be so willing to keep secrets from my daughter? What kind of girl are you?"

Rosalie's mouth popped open in a mix of surprise and disbelief. "Excuse me?" she demanded.

"You heard me, missy! For you to say you'd be up for keeping secrets from Bella, right to her father's face no less! You've lost a lot of points with me now. If you ever manage to win my daughter's heart, you bet I'll be there to interrupt every tender, loving moment I can! And don't even think I'll let you into my house. You're not going to get a single chance to seduce my daughter under my roof. As for you," Charlie turned to Tanya, eyeing the woman up and down with a critical eye. "You're a little too old for my daughter, but I know you can't help who your mate is. And you're a lot more polite than that hussy. The verdict is still out on you, but you can bet my left asscheek I'll be watching and judging, just like a good father does."

"How dare you. I just want to protect-" Rosalie started, but Charlie held up a hand his fingers in the shape of a cross. The action silenced her only because of how dumbfounded it left Rosalie and Tanya.

"Back, succubus! I will not let you have my daughter!" Charlie leaned over so he could get his two finger cross closer to Rosalie. "You will not have my girl's heart as long as I have something to say about it, you hear me? You damned evil succubus bimbo!" He leaned even further out of his bed, so far that he lost his balance. He started to fall, and as Rosalie was the closest and knew how bad it would look for Charlie to injure himself further in Rosalie and Tanya's presence, she flashed over to steady him. "Thank you, succubus," Charlie said gruffly. Settling himself more safely in his bed, he made a cross with his fingers once more and shoved it in Rosalie's face. "Now begone, succubus thot! I will not let you have my daughter, you hear me? I will keep her pure-aw, fuck it, my girl has never been pure, but you can bet I'm never going to let you seduce her. Not with that attitude you have, anyway. Now get the hell out of my room before I start using something that will work."

It was hard not to smack the stupid finger cross out of her face, but Rosalie managed, if only for Bella's sake. "Like what, exactly?" Rosalie asked the human scathingly.

"Like screaming like a little girl," Charlie shot back with a hint of pride. "Anyway, I have to finish my food. Get your succubus ass out of here before I do what needs to be done. You can bet I'm putting in a bad word for you with Bella, too. I'll tell her that you're a real bitch."

"Good luck with that. She already knows how much of a bitch I am," Roshalie hissed at him. Before she and Charlie could get into it any further, Tanya took Rosalie by the shoulders and started herding her to the door.

"I hope you feel better soon, Charlie," Tanya said before she left.

"Nice meeting you Tanya," Charlie said with a grin at the older blonde. This was followed by a narrowed eyed frown at Rosalie, "Succubus."

Tanya quickly pushed Rosalie out of the room before she exploded, but not before catching a sly grin on Charlie's face. What was that man thinking about?

It was hard not to burst into laughter for Tanya as she steered Rosalie down the halls of the hospital as quickly as she could. The moment they were at a safe distance, Rosalie's next words caused the laughter to escape the older blonde.

"How dare he call me a succubus when the real succubus was next to me the entire time? Just wait until he finds out the truth, Tanya. When he finds out that you're an actual succubus...I can't wait to see the look on his face. I'll make him eat those words," Rosalie swore lowly under her breath. "What was that about not being allowed in his house, anyway? We aren't even allowed on Quileute land, of course I can't come to Bella's house. Not to mention the cross he made with his fingers! He knew it wouldn't do anything except be incredibly offensive, but he did it anyway. Can you believe how rude he is? No wonder Bella ended up being so...so…"

"Bella?" Tanya suggested helpfully.

"Yes!" Rosalie threw her hands up in the air, thoroughly frustrated by the meeting with Charlie. "Just you wait, Tanya, you and I are going to seduce Bella so thoroughly that she'll have to admit she loves us. Not only will we get our mate, but then we'll get the added bonus of rubbing it in Charlie's face whenever he's around for the rest of that asshole's life. You can bet we'll rub it in Bella's face too! She kept saying how much she didn't want me before you got here, and you can bet we need to make her pay for that. Nobody out there can resist Rosalie Hale, especially not her mate, and nobody can resist an actual succubus either, especially one as beautiful as you, Tanya. It's about time we show her that."

Tanya hummed in agreement, more than willing to listen to Rosalie rant with amusement, when she realized something. With all of that chaos Charlie caused, he had managed to wipe all hesitation and worry in regards to Bella from Tanya and Rosalie's minds. There was certainly a lot more to that man than meets the eye, but one thing was certain; regardless of what he claimed or what would happen in the future, Charlie was definitely on their side. It was something Tanya couldn't be more grateful for.

After all, with Bella as their mate, Tanya and Rosalie knew they needed all the help they could get.