Work Text:
Charlie Swan isn’t stupid.
Sure, he’d never been a straight-A student nor did he attend college, but he prides himself on having common sense and a good head on his shoulders, which is why he makes a solemn, solitary procession to the small river in the woods. The only dirge he could hear was the crunch of leaf-litter beneath his shoes, the faint drizzle hitting the tops of the trees, and the occasional caw of a lonely bird, but he found comfort within it.
Reaching the edge of the shore, he crouches down on old leather boots and pulls a folded paper boat from his front pocket.
He taught her how to make paper boats once, years ago during one of her summer visits to Forks after the school year ended. Though she would decorate her boats with as much glitter and paint as the paper could hold, he chose a few pages from an old dog-eared book left on her dresser for this occasion. They would go out to the very same woods he stands in today to race their boats, after thoroughly cautioning her to be on the lookout for the wolves that supposedly lived in the area.
He isn’t scared of the wolves anymore.
Gently unfurling the boat, he makes sure that the petals he delicately placed in the hull didn’t crush during the trek, and finds that they made the journey unscathed. He didn’t consider himself a sentimental man, but he’s glad he saved a few blooms from the wedding. Placing the boat in the water, he watches as the current tries to take it from his grasp, but he doesn’t quite let go yet.
Charlie Swan isn’t stupid. He knows his daughter is dead.
As her father, he always thought Bella was perfect. What made Bella beautiful were all of her imperfections, but the new Bella is perfect. Her porcelain face looked like it was sculpted by a master’s hands, and lacks the details that made Bella herself. The quirk of her lips, the tilt in her nose, the ghost of a dimple on her cheek had vanished alongside her warm brown eyes, as rich and as dark as the soil he stands on today. The new Bella wears a façade of his daughter’s appearance, close enough to fool everyone but him.
She doesn’t act the same, either. His daughter was a clumsy young woman still finding her way in the world. Now, every step is precise, every word is calculated, she doesn’t even feel the same. He committed the warmth and texture of her skin when he held her for the first time to his memory, and every touch she gives now feels wrong. He can’t look at her for too long before an inkling of fear creeps up his spine.
Isabella Swan is dead, and Bella Cullen rose from her grave.
After a moment, he lifts his hand from the boat and lets the river guide it away. He sighs, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and lets the grief inside him sail away on the boat’s maiden and final voyage. He stands vigil until it disappears from his sight, and lets his tears fall beside raindrops upon the earth.
As he turns away from the water, ink from the pages begins to bleed upon the petals as they sail to their final resting place.
“[…] alas! She’s cold.
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.”
Lord Capulet, Romeo and Juliet
(Act Four, Scene Five)