i fell down the anthill for days (bella, nessie, charlie) pg
title: i fell down the anthill for days
fandom: twilight
character(s)/pairing(s): bella, nessie, charlie
rating: pg
word count: 829
spoilers: breaking dawn.
notes: character death. title from neko case's "fever."
summary: “what happened to black being classic? i mean, this is a funeral for god’s sake. i can’t send you dressed in teal.”
Bella flings another useless armful of clothes across the bedspread, her golden eyes wild and her hair frizzed from her fussing. She’s been quiet since the phone call, but morning dawned and she just… snapped.
The rest of the family is hiding downstairs somewhere, unsure how to handle the situation. None of the others had ever stuck around so close to their human lives as to witness the deaths of their family. Nessie ascended the staircase slowly, as if approaching a baby bird, and peaks around the doorframe. Bella doesn’t acknowledge her arrival, but immediately begins ranting.
“Why don’t you have any black clothes?” She glares at the fistful of brights and pastels as if they are at fault for existing, for taking up closet room from more sensible colors.
Nessie chooses her exact words carefully, treading on delicate fishing line.
“Aunt Alice says it’s too depressing.” It’s a practiced mumble; any inarticulate Cullen is a manipulative Cullen.
The sound that emanates from her mother’s throat is unearthly, a tangled web of grief and helplessness and exhaustion. She’s just so tired. The last time she slept, her daughter was a baby. She was living in Forks. She could cry. The last time she slept her father was alive.
Rest in peace, Charlie.
“What happened to black being classic?” Her voice is hysterical. “I mean, this is a funeral for God’s sake. I can’t send you dressed in teal!”
She collapses into an arm chair, and her hands cover her face as if shielding her daughter from her non-existent tears. Nessie rests her hands on Bella’s shoulders.
Nessie knows how much Bella wishes she could attend the funeral herself, could stand up and speak about her beloved father, walk the gravestones and sprinkle dirt on his coffin. But the youngest Cullen is the only one of them all that actually looks her age, can pass for a granddaughter to a seventy year old for those not in the know. Most people still never knew that the Chief’s daughter and Edward Cullen had a child. Regardless, they didn’t know her face, not enough to know it hadn’t changed in near twenty years.
“I know you’ll miss Grandpa,” She whispers, kneeling down at her mother’s feet, and Bella shudders, nodding. “But he knew how much you loved him. You don’t have anything to regret.”
Bella looks down on her daughter and she can almost make out a ghost of her father’s features there. Beneath the shape of her face (Bella) and the perfection of her straight nose (all Edward) she can just see the girl’s grandfather, hidden but not forgotten. She’s suddenly reminded of his expression when she told him the family was moving; she remembered it clearly - his face pulled taught like paper, the lines there etched deeply like roads on a map. The parallel highways between his eyes deepened to ravines as his forehead furrowed in confusion.
“You leaving your old man?”
Bella’s chest had ached like it was full of iron, her motionless arteries like lead pipes, weighing her down.
“We’ll come back to visit,” she assured, but she knew it to be a lie. Charlie was already asking her the secret to her youthful face and she didn’t have an answer for him anymore; she was barely passing for twenty-six.
He sighed, tired and resigned and older than he should have to be.
“All right. I guess a family like the Cullens shouldn’t be tied down for too long. And Nessie- she’ll want to see the world I suppose.” She’d nodded, fighting tears that would never come, “But you’ll send her back to see her Grandpa? She grows up so fast.” You have no idea, she’d wanted to say, but bit her tongue and gave her father one last lingering bear hug, tighter than she usually would have allowed herself, baring a hint of her inhuman strength.
She had left him, only putting a card in the mail every father’s day, but she knew what she’d been sacrificing by becoming a vampire. It had been a long time coming and she was grateful for the extra time she had been awarded with him, for herself and for her daughter. Nessie was right; she had no regrets.
Bella cracks a wry smile, no humor there.
“When did you get so smart, huh?”
“Psht. I was born a genius, mama. Just took you this long to catch up.”
It works, and Bella gives a watery snort, leaning forward to gather her daughter in her arms like she’s getting ready to carry her to safety.
“You know you don’t have to go. You’ll be alone,” she murmurs into Nessie’s shoulder, and the girl nods, aware.
“Yeah. But… I want to. This way I can let you know how it goes.” She smiles sadly, wiping invisible moisture from Bella’s stone cheek. “It’ll almost be like you were there.”
The proud shine in Bella’s eyes could almost be tears.
fandom: twilight
character(s)/pairing(s): bella, nessie, charlie
rating: pg
word count: 829
spoilers: breaking dawn.
notes: character death. title from neko case's "fever."
summary: “what happened to black being classic? i mean, this is a funeral for god’s sake. i can’t send you dressed in teal.”
Bella flings another useless armful of clothes across the bedspread, her golden eyes wild and her hair frizzed from her fussing. She’s been quiet since the phone call, but morning dawned and she just… snapped.
The rest of the family is hiding downstairs somewhere, unsure how to handle the situation. None of the others had ever stuck around so close to their human lives as to witness the deaths of their family. Nessie ascended the staircase slowly, as if approaching a baby bird, and peaks around the doorframe. Bella doesn’t acknowledge her arrival, but immediately begins ranting.
“Why don’t you have any black clothes?” She glares at the fistful of brights and pastels as if they are at fault for existing, for taking up closet room from more sensible colors.
Nessie chooses her exact words carefully, treading on delicate fishing line.
“Aunt Alice says it’s too depressing.” It’s a practiced mumble; any inarticulate Cullen is a manipulative Cullen.
The sound that emanates from her mother’s throat is unearthly, a tangled web of grief and helplessness and exhaustion. She’s just so tired. The last time she slept, her daughter was a baby. She was living in Forks. She could cry. The last time she slept her father was alive.
Rest in peace, Charlie.
“What happened to black being classic?” Her voice is hysterical. “I mean, this is a funeral for God’s sake. I can’t send you dressed in teal!”
She collapses into an arm chair, and her hands cover her face as if shielding her daughter from her non-existent tears. Nessie rests her hands on Bella’s shoulders.
Nessie knows how much Bella wishes she could attend the funeral herself, could stand up and speak about her beloved father, walk the gravestones and sprinkle dirt on his coffin. But the youngest Cullen is the only one of them all that actually looks her age, can pass for a granddaughter to a seventy year old for those not in the know. Most people still never knew that the Chief’s daughter and Edward Cullen had a child. Regardless, they didn’t know her face, not enough to know it hadn’t changed in near twenty years.
“I know you’ll miss Grandpa,” She whispers, kneeling down at her mother’s feet, and Bella shudders, nodding. “But he knew how much you loved him. You don’t have anything to regret.”
Bella looks down on her daughter and she can almost make out a ghost of her father’s features there. Beneath the shape of her face (Bella) and the perfection of her straight nose (all Edward) she can just see the girl’s grandfather, hidden but not forgotten. She’s suddenly reminded of his expression when she told him the family was moving; she remembered it clearly - his face pulled taught like paper, the lines there etched deeply like roads on a map. The parallel highways between his eyes deepened to ravines as his forehead furrowed in confusion.
“You leaving your old man?”
Bella’s chest had ached like it was full of iron, her motionless arteries like lead pipes, weighing her down.
“We’ll come back to visit,” she assured, but she knew it to be a lie. Charlie was already asking her the secret to her youthful face and she didn’t have an answer for him anymore; she was barely passing for twenty-six.
He sighed, tired and resigned and older than he should have to be.
“All right. I guess a family like the Cullens shouldn’t be tied down for too long. And Nessie- she’ll want to see the world I suppose.” She’d nodded, fighting tears that would never come, “But you’ll send her back to see her Grandpa? She grows up so fast.” You have no idea, she’d wanted to say, but bit her tongue and gave her father one last lingering bear hug, tighter than she usually would have allowed herself, baring a hint of her inhuman strength.
She had left him, only putting a card in the mail every father’s day, but she knew what she’d been sacrificing by becoming a vampire. It had been a long time coming and she was grateful for the extra time she had been awarded with him, for herself and for her daughter. Nessie was right; she had no regrets.
Bella cracks a wry smile, no humor there.
“When did you get so smart, huh?”
“Psht. I was born a genius, mama. Just took you this long to catch up.”
It works, and Bella gives a watery snort, leaning forward to gather her daughter in her arms like she’s getting ready to carry her to safety.
“You know you don’t have to go. You’ll be alone,” she murmurs into Nessie’s shoulder, and the girl nods, aware.
“Yeah. But… I want to. This way I can let you know how it goes.” She smiles sadly, wiping invisible moisture from Bella’s stone cheek. “It’ll almost be like you were there.”
The proud shine in Bella’s eyes could almost be tears.