A/N: Five pages of a depressing Christmas chapter filled with depressing Christmas music. I am estimating one more Forks chapter before Bella leaves for New York then a full Cullen family reunion. Happy Holidays

"Get me through December, a promise I'll remember.

Get me through December."

Get Me Through December - Alison Krauss and Natalie MacMaster

Chapter 6: Get Me Through December

I'd never spent any holidays with Edward but part of me wishes we had shared that together. Ever since I read the letter he hid under my floorboards he had been in my mind more than I liked. I've missed out on so much because he always thought he knew better. Sigh. I roll over in bed to face the closed window, long ago I stopped leaving it open. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window— these were all a part of my childhood.

I woke up Christmas morning with a feeling of overwhelming melancholy. But I push those feelings aside because today is about Charlie. Today would be our last Christmas, and I couldn't let him know that.

I wanted to make it special, and memorable for him. I start on a big breakfast before the sun comes up, I hadn't been able to sleep anyways. Less than an hour later I have a big pan of French toast and scrambled eggs covered on the stove to keep them warm.

Charlie stumbles downstairs when the smells of breakfast start to float upstairs. "Something smells good, Bells."

"Sit down, I'll plate it for you."

He does as I ask, watching me with a smile.

"Do you want coffee?" I ask him as I place a packed plate in front of him.

"Cream and sugar."

I hand him the mug and sit down next to him.

"Merry Christmas, Dad," I say, kissing his cheek when I place an overflowing plate in front of him.

"Merry Christmas, Bells. This looks great." A few years ago his hair had begun to gray at the temples, there were lines on his face, and there was a distinct tiredness around his dark eyes. Not the tiredness you got from one sleepless night, but from many over the years.

We start eating in comfortable silence and I try to keep the dark thoughts from my mind. As disastrous as this situation ended up being, at least with Edward leaving that meant I got four more Christmases with Charlie.

"I wish you didn't have to move so far away, I still feel like I just got you back." He says, his cheeks warming in a familiar blush.

The strange feeling in my stomach almost became a twisting sickness. How true I wish his words were. "I know, Dad. It's just such a great opportunity. There's nothing like it here."

"I know." He grumbles. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

I laugh softly at his pout. But I know I can't promise him that I'll be back or that I'll see him soon. The thought brings tears to my eyes and I get up, intent on working on Christmas dinner so he can't read my face like an open book.

"Before you get started on dinner we should open presents," Charlie said, urging me to the living room. "And stop worrying so much, Bella, you are going to give yourself an ulcer." He laughed.

I roll my eyes in jest but let him pull me along, "Dad, I told you I didn't need anything."

"And I didn't listen! Billy and I went out one day when we told you we were going fishing and went shopping for our girls."

We didn't have Christmas traditions that went back generations, we never did much for any major holidays. Unless you count Charlie working when I was little as a Christmas tradition, with all the family gatherings led to a high volume of domestic disputes and drunken disorderly conduct. We spent maybe one Christmas as a family before my parents got divorced, then Renee and I were on our own.

Christmas was Renee's favorite time of year, especially when we moved to Phoenix because she could enjoy the sun, warmth, and holiday festivities. We never had much money wise but we would spend nights after I got home from school making handmade presents for each other. And every year on Black Friday we would pick out a new flannel shirt for Charlie that I would send him for Christmas. It was never much but it was what we did. When Renee and Phil got married we would visit his family, or at least we did like two times, but I don't think they were fans of my mother because we never were invited back.

The past few years we spent Christmas Day with the Blacks, either here or at their house, just the four of us in the morning before Charlie went to work a double shift so his deputies with small kids, like Mark, could spend the day with their families.

Once Charlie left us, the wolves would descend (literally). Emily, Kim, Sue, and I would then make a huge feast of food for dinner that the guys would finish off in under an hour.

Last year Emily's stove wasn't working, which we didn't find out until the roast was in there for four hours and came out still raw. Embry decided he didn't care if it was raw and cut off a huge slab to eat and licked his plate clean. . . He spent that night throwing up but still claimed to have no regrets.

Then, later that night I was lying on the couch with Jake, a fire in the fireplace at Charlie's even though we didn't need it.

"The twelve days of Christmas is completely unrealistic, Bella. There is no way in hell that you're still accepting gifts from someone after four days of fucking birds."

"Day six and seven are birds, too." I remind him.

"Oh, you okay, Babe? You've barely touched the 184 birds I gave you over the course of the 12 days of Christmas." He scoffs, his laugh shaking the both of us.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" I smiled up at him but it didn't reach my eyes. "I want to see inside your head," I said. "It must be fascinating."

"You have no idea."

Even the mere thought of seeing into Jake's mind brings me back to the only mind reader I've ever known. The hole that he had created and left me with, I didn't think it would ever go away.

The melancholia takes over me again, like an addiction I can't kick. Every time I felt myself let a little happiness in, the weight of my depression would pull me back down, reminding me that I was not where I was supposed to be or with who I needed the most.

"I know this shouldn't be a lonely time.

But there were Christmases when I didn't wonder how you are tonight.

'Cause there were Christmases when you were mine."

Christmases When You Were Mine - Taylor Swift

My hindsight seems unbearably clear right now. I could see every mistake I had made, every bit of harm I'd done, the small things and the big things. Jake loved me in spite of myself, in spite of everything. He was the only man that I remotely let into my life. And I just cut him loose, like a frayed edge of an old shirt.

Last night I watched as the weatherman predicted an unseasonably cold Christmas which seemed fitting without my personal sun.

Charlie wanted to take today off but I wouldn't let him. As much as I wanted to spend the whole day with him I knew it was important to him that his deputies got to spend the day with their young kids. He took off this morning, only working one shift instead of a double. I planned to enjoy every moment of my time left with him, watching the days fall away until my departure. I would get too sad to enjoy the day if I dwelled on the future. Today we'd have breakfast and open presents then he would go to the station. What he didn't know was that I was going to meet him there for dinner. Once he left I would start on the roast and vegetables, I also had a pie to make.

"Open the present, Bells." Charlie urges. "Don't be difficult."

I bite my lip as I pull the perfectly creased silver tissue paper out of the bag to find what's inside.

I have the Tiffany blue jewelry box out. It takes both hands to open the box and I gasp softly when I see the platinum bar with my name engraved in it along with a small swan charm on a matching chain. "Dad, I- thank you so much," I say, looking up from the beautiful necklace for the first time. A simple thanks felt insufficient.

"You're welcome," Charlie says, his cheeks turning as red as mine. "Merry Christmas."

I turn away from him and wipe my face before any more tears can fall from my eyes.

"What's wrong? Do you not like it?" Charlie asks, looking at me with concern.

I shake my head quickly. "I love it."

To distract him I handed him a pile of gifts. "I told you I didn't need anything."

"The top box is from me and Jake." I interrupt him, leaning down to kiss his cheek. He opens the plaid paper to find a plaid shirt of the exact same color and pattern, Jake was very proud of that fact.

The other boxes contained new fishing equipment, boots as well as a trucker-style Cornell Rams baseball cap that I rush-ordered from their school store. It was a last-minute idea but I know how much he loves the coincidently same colored hat I got him from the University of Washington when I first got accepted.

Charlie also got me a handful of gift cards to use in New York, like to target and Ikea. At that moment the guilt was almost overwhelming, the fact that I was lying to him like this. I was suddenly mad, mad at Victoria and the Cullens. . . at myself.

Before long Charlie is getting ready for work, a thermos full of hot coffee as I curled up on the couch with my new heated blanket watching a Christmas movie.

"Drive safe, Dad."

"Always do, Kid."

I turned off 'the Santa Clause' about halfway through when the mother takes their son away from his Dad and doesn't let him see him. It always reminds me of what Renee did to me when she divorced Charlie. We all spent too many holidays apart.

I force myself off the couch to finish dinner, most of which has been baking away so it's almost done. I pull the roast out of the oven to let it rest while I replace it with a pumpkin pie and Charlie's favorite: green bean casserole.

The silence of the house got to me after a while. Before I broke things off with Jake we were always together, either just us, with our families, or with the pack. Overnight it seems my world has frozen over, and frozen me with it.

"When those blue memories start calling:

You'll be doing all right with your Christmas of white.

But I'll have a blue, blue, Christmas."

I hurry in from the cold and falling snow to the warmth of the police department. A little bell rings over the door as I open it, struggling with the door and the pile of covered dishes in my hands.

"Hello?" Charlie calls from behind the counter in his office.

"Dad, it's me," I tell him over the sound of Christmas songs playing softly from the radio in the background.

He rushes from his office to help me. "Bells, what are you doing here?" He takes the food from me, kissing my cheek before leading me back. He clears off the table in the break room, covered in take-out containers and an open box of Christmas cookies that probably passed stale a few days ago. "You never answered me."

"I figured, hopefully, that you were bored because there was nothing to do so neither of us should spend the night alone."

"I'm gonna really miss your cooking when you leave me, Bells." Charlie tells me.

I smile at him but don't let myself think about it too long. I just need to enjoy today and make it good for him since I know it will be out last. "Just my cooking?"

"I'll need to learn how to cook for myself," Charlie grumbled.

I stifled a laugh. "Aren't you a bit old to just now learn to cook?" I ask him.

His eyebrows shot upwards and he smiled at me. "Are you calling me an old man?"

I unwrap my scarf, place it over the back of my chair, and unzip my coat. I grab us some waters from the fridge while Charlie opens all the containers, spreading them out between us. We fill up our plates and settle into a comfortable silence that unfortunately comes to an end too soon.

"Have you called your Mom?"

I sigh, "she won't talk to me, Dad. It's fine, I text Phil." He's a lot easier to put up with these days than my mother is.

"You should talk to her."

"It's not me who is avoiding my phone calls. She's mad at me but whatever, it's fine."

"No, it isn't. I know she can be difficult and stubborn but you're more stubborn than her on her best day."

I roll my eyes. I remember I was always so desperate not to make her life any harder when I was growing up. I even left her to move in with Charlie once she got married but my mother had never made it a secret how hard life as a single mother was, how much she gave up. I understood then and what Charlie can't understand is why I'm letting her keep this distance between us now. She has a new family that doesn't involve me and I know she's safer without me around. Now especially, when I would be dying or we would be faking my death sometime in the very near future.

She stopped answering my calls over one stupid fucking argument. She didn't understand why I wouldn't come to see her and I couldn't tell her. . . Still, earlier this month before Alice and the proposal and everything fell apart completely, Jake and I went out shopping for everyone and I mailed Renee and them a big box of presents. Well, Jake packed and mailed them so Victoria wouldn't track them through my scent.

There was a time my mother was my best friend. Hell, up until roughly two years ago, besides the occasional postcard, her whereabouts were usually unknown. And after our falling out, Renee only did things that benefitted her, and caring for her first child was not high on her list.

Renee would be Renee and there was nothing I could do, I just have to accept that most everyone was safer without me around. Maybe next Christmas will be different.

"Let's not talk about Renee, Dad. How's work going tonight?"

A/N: Happy Holidays if I don't update again before Christmas. (Also if you like this story check out my other Twilight work-in-progress story If I Get Burned)

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