Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 1 (Twilight 1/11)

Of course it was raining on the day that Bells was flying in.

It was to be expected, what with it being Forks and all, but I'd been hoping Port Angeles would be a little drier for her when she landed... The memory of that phone call from three years ago still echoed in my memory, a bad song I couldn't get out of your head.

"I don't want to go to Forks anymore, Dad," Bella had said, back when she was 14. "It's too rainy. You should just come here instead."

Even though those two weeks of August were what I looked forward to most -- hanging around the town, taking her to my favourite spots, having the whole town get excited for "Beautiful Isabella's yearly visit" -- I'd eventually conceded, swapping her usual two week stay with me for my own "vacation" out to Arizona. I'm not the biggest fan of the sun, if I'm being honest, and the bustle of Phoenix always made me feel ill at ease in the pit of my stomach, but I was happy that she still wanted to see her dad, if only for two weeks every summer, even if it had to be at Renee's.

And now she was actually moving here. To Forks. Where I grew up and where my parents grew up and where Renee, for a few short yet wonderful years, had lived before taking off to a warmer world. Apparently she had found herself some sort of baseball player boyfriend, and would be heading out on the road with him -- leaving Bells here with me in Forks, just like how she'd taken off on me that rainy morning all those long years ago.

I pulled the police cruiser up at Arrivals, getting some looks from a few folks probably wondering what business a Forks officer had so far from home. Well, their questions were soon answered when Bells walked up to me, looking a helluva lot older than the last time I'd seen her.

The older she got, the more I thought about all that I'd missed as she'd grown up. It was hard to hold back the tears as she came in for a hug, nearly falling as she did. I caught her, but awkwardly, having to use one arm for balance as she righted herself.

"It's good to see you, Bells," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "You haven't changed much. How's Renee?" She had changed quite a bit actually; grown taller, and her hair was longer, but it's just something I said to her every time I first saw her in person again, as if to convince myself that I hadn't been so damn absent as she was growing up.

"Mom's fine. It's good to see you too, Dad," she said. Hearing her call me dad, for the first time in what felt like months, was a little too much for me, and I decided to concern myself with her few bags so that she wouldn't see me getting a little teary-eyed. She hopped in the cruiser, and I joined her behind the wheel, finally allowing myself to feel the excitement that had been creeping in.

"I found a good car for you, really cheap," I said. I knew she hated being driven around in the cruiser, but I'd never really thought to get a second vehicle, given that if I was driving, I was usually on duty -- hell, even when I wasn't on duty, I was on duty.

"What kind of car?"

"Well, it's a truck, actually. A Chevy."

"Where did you find it?"

"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" Poor Billy had suffered a hunting accident that lost him the use of his legs a year ago, but before that he, Bella, and I would spend loads of time together when she used to come to visit. Billy Black was my best friend, and had been since our school days.

"No," Bella said.

"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," I said, hoping to remind her of some of those good ol' Forks memories. She just stared ahead at the rainy highway, silent. "He's in a wheelchair now, so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap." He didn't actually offer, so much as finally relented after months of begging, bribing, and, on a few occasions, threatening -- there aren't many vehicles for sale in a place like Forks, and I wanted to get Bella something to make her move here as palatable as possible.