Chapter Text
Helplessness was a familiar feeling for Charlie Swan. When his childhood friends kept secrets, or when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, or when Renée picked up their seven-month-old daughter and whisked her off to the middle of the desert. There were very few things in Charlie’s private life that he had control over.
It was one of the main reasons he had done so well in the police force. If you don’t have a family to come home to, then there was no reason not to spend hours at the precinct. He could carefully curate his reports, volunteer for extra shifts, and spend his downtime thinking about case files and nothing else. He found that his dedication to his job meant he rose quickly through the ranks, and he became Fork’s second-youngest Sheriff by the time he hit 35.
When you dedicate yourself to your community, there are a lot of things you get back in return. Everyone knew his face, and they usually had a friendly word to say when he turned up at the diner for his 5th cup of coffee. People trusted him; he never had to shout in a room full of people, because they would always get quiet enough to listen. Teenagers were generally very polite, if they couldn’t swerve out of his way, and it was always funny to pretend like he didn’t smell the weed on them and see them shuffle and sweat. Being someone people could turn to was nice. It made him feel like he was making even the smallest bit of difference. Maybe, if he proved himself enough to people, or put enough cases in the ‘solved’ archive, or kept the people of Forks feeling safe, then there was something he was good for in this world.
Maybe he was helpful, instead of helpless.
Charlie didn’t kid himself. You didn’t get to his position without being able to analyse the facts. The facts were: Charlie was a lonely, middle-aged bachelor with two secretive friends and no family to speak of. He could hardly cook, he hated how empty his evenings were, and his ex-wife and daughter couldn’t deign to speak to him. Unless they wanted something.
Renée had called during his lunchtime shift, whilst she was having something called a “mimosa brunch”. It didn’t take a genius to know she had well and truly found something better than a little-cop-in-little-town life. She was going on a grand-American tour, living her ‘best life Charlie’ he should be ‘happy for her happiness’. Sure. It took twenty minutes of her talking about Phil’s next placement in Florida before she oh so casually mentioned that Bella wouldn’t be coming with her.
“What?” She continued like he hadn’t said anything.
“…so she’ll need someplace to go. I told her she could come along, but she put her foot down. Wants to spend time with you, apparently. You know how she gets, Charlie, when she’s set her mind on one of her ideas.”
“Bella wants to come here? See me?”
The sound of a long slurp of cocktail sounded down the crackling line.
“That’s what I said, hun. Oh, my nachos are here, I have to go. I’ll get her to email over some flight details. It won’t be a problem to pick her up from the airport next week, will it?” Her voice became muffled, “I had the one without sour cream, thanks.”
“Next week?” The sound of the dial tone hit his ears. Renée always was a whirlwind.
He was going to have his daughter again. Did he even remember how to be a father? It had been four years since he’d last seen her, and the previous times had always had an expiration date, they’d always been a visit. Bella was the one who didn’t want to come back. She would be a proper teenager now, a somewhat self-sufficient one, from the photos he’d seen and stories he’d heard from Renée. What if she took one look at the house, at him, and saw how little there was of substance there? How empty and unchanged things were since she last left his life?
One week was very little time to make the changes he wanted; to make it seem like he had something other than his job and his fishing trips. He would have to focus on the important things, the things that would make her most comfortable in her time with him. Even if he only got to see her for a year before she chose to skip town to get a bigger and brighter life, he would do his damnedest to make her feel welcome in his home – in their home. She would leave knowing how damn much she was loved. He wouldn’t see her leaving him forever - for a third time - without proving to her how much she meant to him.
It was that thought that spurred him to reach over to the dial pad and poke in a familiar number.
“Hey Billy, have you still got that old truck of yours lying around?”