This is fanfic that I don't own, and Kyilliki was a gracious and wonderful beta-reader. Thanks for the follows, faves, and reviews, guys! They give me life. This chapter has been slightly updated to clean up some writing mistakes and ensure continuity.

I awakened suddenly with the sinking feeling of unfamiliarity. It wasn't as though I hadn't woken up in strange places before, but it never ceased to unsettle me just a little.

I relaxed as I realized that I was in my bedroom upstairs at Charlie's house. I hadn't recognized it at first because the walls were no longer faded pink; someone had repainted them a bright and sunny yellow. A framed picture of a colorful desert hung opposite from the windows, which were covered by vivid orange curtains. My comforter was the same shade, vaguely reminding me of an apricot.

I couldn't suppress my smile as I looked around at all the things that had changed since the last time I had been in here. If I needed evidence that my steady, unchanging father was happy to have me live with him, this was more than enough.

As I pulled the covers back, I realized that I was still wearing the clothes that I had worn the day before. I couldn't remember the last time that I had fallen asleep before putting on my pajamas, if only just because I had a tendency to wear pajamas whenever it was socially acceptable, including as soon as I got home from school and all day on the weekends.

Come to think of it, I couldn't remember going to bed the night before. I racked my brain, but the last thing that I could remember was someone throwing a pie at Lucy Ricardo's face.

I made my bed and briefly showered before heading downstairs. Charlie was seated at the small table in the kitchen, absorbed in his newspaper. The remains of a cup of coffee and a plate of potato stir-fry sat off to one side.

"Morning, dad," I said cheerfully, giving him a half-hug on my way to the stove.

Charlie smiled over the top of his paper. "Morning, Bells. How did you sleep last night?"

"Like a baby," I answered, stirring the potatoes that were sitting in the frying pan. "I must have been tireder than I thought."

"You fell asleep in the middle of the show last night," Charlie said, his voice fond. "It seemed a shame to wake you, so I carried you up to bed and tucked you in."

I paused in the middle of reaching up for a plate, realizing that it made sense. "Aww, dad, you shouldn't have. I could have walked upstairs myself and not put you out."

"You were sleeping, Bells. Traveling is always tiring. It wasn't much."

I changed the subject awkwardly, my ears hot with embarrassment. "Did you want any more of this or can I finish it?"

"Eat as much as you want," Charlie answered, burying himself in his newspaper once more.

I took him up on the offer, emptying the pan and chasing the vegetables down with a tall glass of orange juice. Charlie's cooking was good, but I resolved to take over at least half of it in the future. If I was going to be living here, I should be pulling my weight. When I ventured the idea, Charlie approved, but insisted that he cook dinner that night.

Charlie was on his third cup of coffee by the time I was finished with the dishes. I didn't want to interrupt his perusal of the paper, so it was lucky - or maybe just predictable - that everything was still in the same place it had been the last time.

I headed back upstairs and started to unpack. Between the bags that I'd brought with me and the two boxes that had been sent on ahead of me, I had enough to fill the small closet and the large bookshelf adequately. Charlie called up the stairs to ask if I wanted lunch about halfway through Operation: Integrate, and I yelled back that I'd hold out for dinner, since I was sure that it would be absolutely delicious. I was almost sure that I hadn't imagined the embarrassed pride in his final reply.

By the time I had gotten down to the end of the last box, which contained my personal library, I was very tired and more than ready for a break. Packing my books alphabetically turned out to be a great idea, since the last book out of the box was Watership Down, a perennial favorite. I settled down on my cozy new bedspread to read about sapient rabbits for a while.

"A while" accidentally turned into "most of the afternoon." The clock read five-thirty when I finally emerged from the intense focus that always accompanied reading for me. Hazel and his band of fluffy yet dangerous compatriots had just come up with a plan to thwart General Woundwort, and I wanted to continue reading through the climax… but reality called in the form of a noisy truck turning into the driveway.

I tucked Watership Down back into its appropriate spot on my shelf and made my way carefully downstairs, flicking off the overhead light on my way. I was just in time to greet the Blacks as they entered the front door.

Billy (he had always been Billy to me; nobody called him Mr. Black) seemed much smaller than the last time I had seen him, before summer visits with Charlie moved from Forks to California. He hadn't been confined to a wheelchair back then, and I was taller than I had been, so his eternal grin was directed up instead of down.

Jacob, on the other hand, was now much larger than I remembered him. Despite being two years younger than me, he was already at least six inches taller, and his proportions were gawky enough that I suspected he wasn't done growing yet. I felt suddenly shy; I had been expecting the boy I had spent summers as a kid with, making mud pies and splashing in the creek, but he seemed to have disappeared. Dumb puberty. It would have been nice to really know one person near my age.

"Isabella!" Billy thundered, his voice at least twice as big as he was. I beamed at him and bent to carefully embrace the old man, not expecting the strength of the bear hug he returned. A minute later, laughing and breathless, I held my hand out to Jacob, which he briefly shook and released quickly.

"Hiya, Bella," he said, looking almost as awkward as I felt.

"Hey Billy, Jacob!" I welcomed them, stepping back to let them out of the narrow entryway into the living room. "It's so good to see you guys again!"

Billy wheeled himself into the room, pausing to sniff exaggeratedly. "Smells like you made your famous lasagna, eh, Charlie?"

I saw Jacob perk up at this announcement and smiled. Charlie made a mean lasagna, if my memory served me correctly. I usually avoided dairy products, but I would make an exception for tonight.

"You bet," Charlie agreed pleasantly, heading into the kitchen and checking the oven. He pulled the pan of lasagna out and placed it on the counter. "Jacob, why don't you and Bella run outside and look over the truck while dinner is sitting?"

"Sure," the boy said, smiling shyly at me. "C'mon."

He held the door open and I ducked under his arm, glancing up at the sky as soon as I was outside. The clouds were heavy and threatening, but it was not raining… yet. I hoped it would hold off until we were back inside.

The truck sat in our gravel driveway in all its ancient gravity. It was large, rust-colored, and looked utterly indestructible. I loved it already.

"It's a 1953 Chevy," Jacob said as we walked towards it. "If it was restored, it'd be worth ten, fifteen grand."

"Wow!" I was impressed that a half-century old car was still running without being owned by a collector or something. "Why didn't you restore it and sell it?"

Jacob shrugged. "Too expensive, too hard to get parts, too much time and work involved. I gotta get through school, y'know."

"Oh," I said. "I see." I didn't really, since I had no idea what it would take to restore a car at all, let alone one like this, but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about, so I believed him.

"It's manual—you do know how to drive a clutch, right?" Jacob interrupted himself anxiously. I nodded and he continued, looking relieved. "If you shift too hard, it has a tendency to quit unexpectedly… and it sticks sometimes when you go to reverse. Aside from that, it runs real well."

I nodded again, filing the information away in my head. The quirks of the truck might make driving it a little more challenging, but it was nice that it had some age, some character to it.

"Wanna give her a spin?" Jacob held a key out to me. "The lasagna is gonna be sitting for at least ten minutes."

Jacob's smile was infectious and I found myself finally feeling at ease around him. "Sure! Let's try it out!" I took the key from him and we hopped into the cab of the truck. I felt suddenly small in comparison with the big vehicle; I was used to small, suburban cars, not monsters like this.

It took me two tries to move without killing the engine. Jacob suppressed a snicker, but let me work it out by myself. Eventually, I pulled slowly out of the driveway, being careful to avoid clipping Charlie's cruiser.

I was not the best driver—that required more practice than I had—but I did manage not to run into or over anything on our short tour of the neighborhood, and I only killed the engine one more time, trying to stop at a stop sign. By the time I pulled back into the driveway, I was fairly confident that I could make it to school. I was also pretty sure that Jacob and I should be friends. Now that he had had a chance to warm up to me, he was cracking jokes and making groan-worthy puns at every opportunity.

"What's the difference between a dirty bus stop and a lobster with breast implants?" he asked impishly as I brought the truck to a stop.

"I have no idea," I answered, shutting off the motor and opening my door.

"One's a crusty bus station and the other's a busty crustacean." He hopped out of the truck and I couldn't see his face, but I was fairly sure that he was smirking.

"That's terrible," I groaned, slamming the door behind me. "Really, Jake? Really?"

"It's funny," he said, following me towards the house. "You should laugh."

"Ha-ha." The smell of lasagna and brownies greeted me as I entered the house and I inhaled appreciatively, groan-worthy pun forgotten.

Billy and Charlie were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, plates of lasagna in their laps, studiously watching the game. Charlie turned his head and smiled at me as I entered the living room, waving me towards the kitchen. "Meat's on the left, meatless on the right," he informed me.

The meatless lasagna hadn't been touched yet, so I didn't feel bad about taking a nice big piece. I perched on the arm of the couch next to Charlie, tried to figure out what was happening in the basketball game that was on, and gave up after a few minutes to focus on my food. It didn't disappoint—sixteen years of bachelorhood had honed Charlie's culinary skill to perfection.

By the time the Seattle SuperSonics had lost to the Orlando Magic by what I was told was a sizeable margin, everyone was ready for brownies. I managed to get them out of the oven without burning myself even once, an accomplishment that was sarcastically applauded by the others. I skipped the vanilla Breyers in favor of the fresh raspberries I found in the fridge and we all settled down once more to have a proper chat.

"Rachel is holding her own at Wasu," Billy said with pride.

"Wasu?" I asked, realizing a moment later that it was a little obvious.

"Washington State University. Wasu. She had a little trouble getting adjusted last year, but from what she said over the break, she's really enjoying her sophomore year."

It was hard to believe that Rachel Black, who I distinctly remembered as a wild girl with absolutely no interest in academia, was enjoying college, but stranger things had happened. "How is Rebecca?" I asked.

"How's her husband treating her?" Charlie added. Right, husband. She had one of those, didn't she? I knew I'd heard something to that effect, but it was still a shock. The twins were less than three years older than me, and the idea that one of them could be married already was… really weird.

"Rebecca's doing great," Jacob answered. "She and Sol sent us a Christmas card from some surfing competition in Australia."

"Australia, wow. Is she still, uh, painting?" I thought—hoped—it was Becca who had been the painter.

"Yeah," Jacob nodded. "She's pretty good at it. You'll have to see some of the stuff we have hanging in the living room sometime."

"I'd love to," I said, then ran out of things to talk about.

"You got any college plans, Bella?" Billy asked after a pause that was just long enough to be awkward.

I shrugged. "Nothing concrete, no. There's a couple places with good English and journalism courses that I'm looking at, but I haven't quite made my mind up yet." I did have lists, though. Lots and lots of lists covering every possible aspect of the decision. I was fairly confident that I'd be able to make an informed choice by the end of my junior year, then apply early in my senior year and get on the fast track. My grades were good enough for that, at least.

"Journalism, huh? You like ferretting out secrets?" Billy chuckled, exchanging a significant glance with Charlie. "You gonna start shadowing your old man to find out what he's up to?"

Charlie threw a pillow in Billy's direction with a mock scowl. "Bells and I don't need to keep secrets from each other unless it's Christmas."

After another slightly awkward pause, Billy brought up the basketball game and the three guys lapsed into what sounded suspiciously like a foreign language. I knew a few things about baseball—it would be difficult to spend more than an hour around Phil without picking up at least a little bit about the sport - but basketball was not something that I was familiar with, so I excused myself and started washing the dinner dishes. By the time I was done, the conversation was winding down and Billy was starting to make noises about heading out.

"Harry was gonna swing by and pick us up in twenty, but I think I'll call him and ask him to come sooner," he rumbled, glancing at his watch.

"Absolutely not," Charlie overruled. "I'll drive you home."

"Well now, I wouldn't want to put you out," Billy demurred gruffly, digging a flip phone out of his pocket. "Harry's not far, and—"

"Out of the question," Charlie interrupted, fishing car keys from his jeans. "The only reason you need a ride is because you just sold me your truck, so I gotta take you back."

"Well," Billy hesitated, then yielded suddenly. "Sure, if you want."

"You'll be okay, Bells?" Charlie asked, hesitating just inside the door with a cautious glance my way.

I shooed him out the door. "I'll be fine, dad. Don't worry about me."

"Bye, Bella," Billy called, wheeling himself over the threshold with ease. "Good to see you again."

"Bye," Jacob added, turning shy again and refusing to make eye contact as he followed his father out. "See you later."

"Goodbye, guys," I shouted after them, hanging the dishtowel over the fridge handle to dry. The rumble of Charlie's cruiser pulled away a moment later as I stuck the leftover lasagna into the fridge and sneaked one more brownie before covering the pan and putting it back in the mostly-cooled oven.

"Right," I said to myself, glancing at the clock. It was only ten, but I needed to get back into school sleeping habits sometime, I figured. With that cheerful reflection, I headed upstairs, pulled Watership Down from my shelf once more and tucked myself into my new bed.

It started to rain as I read all about Bigwig infiltrating the dictatorial warren, with the result being that I didn't hear Charlie's car pull back into the driveway. My first warning of his return was his heavy tread on the stairs a moment before he peeked tentatively through my open door.

"Need anything, Bells?" he asked with an anxious smile. "Just wanted to make sure before I went to bed."

"I'm great, dad, thanks for checking," I said. "Uh, thanks. For the truck and everything. It was really nice."

Charlie shrugged, looking as uncomfortable as I felt. "I knew Billy wanted to sell it, and I knew you wanted to buy something, so it just made sense, I guess. Glad you like it."

"It's great. Thanks."

"Well, uh, goodnight. Sleep well, Bells." Charlie smiled one more time and retreated back down the stairs. I decided to set aside my book for the night and turned off my lamp before snuggling down. Sleep was a long time in coming, but eventually I drifted off.