A/N: I own Nothing...SM Owns it all...I just want to play with it for a while...

You'll just hang in there, by 3rd chapter things start to pick up. I had to lay some heavy ground work for the story to go as planned. So please just hang in there and R&R. ~Thanks~

CHAPTER 1

How it all Began

Bella knows that she is different. She never understood why or how that she was different. She just knew it. It was something that she just felt deep down inside of her self. Her difference, is a thought that has lingered in her head since she was little. When one of her teachers said that something was the way it was Bella always wondered, if what they were saying was really true. She would re-think everything wondering if what one of the teachers or any adult said was true to one person, was it really true to all persons?

She always thought that she was a little on the weird side. She never thought of herself as a normal person. The older she got the more she realized that normal is just a setting on a washing machine. Normal was something that she differently was not.

Bella had never felt that she was worthily of much in her life. Her mom Renee and her dad Charlie split up before she had even learned how to walk. They just couldn't make their lives together work out.

Well that is a lie. Renee couldn't make her life Folks, Washington work out with Charlie.

Renee wanted bigger and better things in hers and Bella's lives then what a small town life could give her. Charlie wanted a stable and a relaxed life.

They just couldn't make it work between them. The only thing that either Charlie or Renee could agree on was that Bella, was the best thing that had ever happened to either one of them. They both loved their daughter with all of their hearts. They'd do whatever it took to make Bella's life the best that they could make it. Whether they were together or not.

Bella could barley sit up on her own when she and Renee, left Forks. Bella was only ten months old at the time.

Renee had plans of the things that she wanted to do with Bella. She wanted Bella to live a life that she would never be able to live in such a small minded, small town like Forks.

Renee has her teaching degree and a couple of years of teaching the 2nd grade under her belt.

She thought that she had her future wrapped up in a tight little bundle. But life always has a way of making itself known. Whether you want it to or not.

Renee had a little bit of money in her pocket. It was part of the divorce settlement. Charlie had agreed that Renee deserved her half of what their little white house was worth. It wasn't much, but Charlie wanted to make Renee's and Bella's lives the best that he could give them.

If he was nothing else Charlie was an honorable man with only the best of intension towards his ex-wife and daughter.

Charlie missed both of girls after they left Forks. It was the July, just before his Bells turned one.

He missed them so deeply that he would have given Renee the full asking price of the house. Since they had both shared the home, if she would have stayed closer to Folks. He knew when Renee told him that it was over. She said "that she wanted out of that a small town." So Charlie knew that wasn't what she had in mind.

It broke Charlie brought him to his knees to be without the love of his life, and the little girl that had brought the sunshine into his heart. He was strong on the outside, but on the inside all he wanted to do was crawl up in a ball and die. He didn't do that though.

He was working as a small town cop when Renee told him that she was pregnant. They weren't married at the time, and he had dreams of his own. But from the moment he found out he was going to be a father he put his dreams on the back burner. Charlie focused whole heartedly on the little life that was growing within Renee.

Charlie started working harder at his job, and he asked Renee to marry him. She said "Yes." Of course.

Then he bought them this white house that he sat in now crying his eyes out in, after watching his family drive away from him.

Renee had no idea of where she was going when she left Forks. Her only thoughts were that she was getting out. When Renee was younger her parents had moved all over the place. Her dad George was an Army man. That meant that Renee hadn't lived in more than one place for more than a couple of years at a time. Renee's best memories were of a time in her life that were carefree and happy.

She didn't mean to get pregnant by Charlie. Getting pregnant on one of their first dates, now that was a mistake. No the pregnancy wasn't a mistake, it was a surprise. A mistake was something that if you had to do over again, you would not. A surprise is something that you didn't know you wanted, until you had it. She could not go back and change anything that had happened. So she would just make her own way through life.

Renee and Bella were on 101 heading South towards California. Bella was asleep in her car seat in the back of Renee's old car. Yes Renee felt guilty for what she was doing to Charlie. She would forever have a soft spot for him in her heart. He had given her the best thing that this life had ever been gifted to her. Bella.

The guilt wasn't enough to make her turn around and settle. She had people to meet and places to go. The guilt would just have to dull. It would over time or so she hoped.

Renee called Charlie that night, after she had left. She let him know that Bella had slept most of trip away so far. That they were both doing well. Renee wanted to tell Charlie that she loved him, and that they would come home. But in the end she just couldn't do that. She knew she was being selfish and childish, but she could not stay in Washington. Not after everything that she now knew.

When Renee was 4 months pregnant with Bella, her mother Marie had died suddenly. Renee being the only child needed to go back to California, and lay her mother to rest. Of course Charlie was right there with her. He stayed right by her side the whole time. He was understanding and helpful.

You see Charlie had lost both of his parents, when he was 19. They were driving home from Port Angeles. When a deer ran out in the middle of the road. The skid marks left on the road showed that his father, had tried to swerve out of the way. The deer had not only hit, the front end of the car. But it also came up over the hood of the car, and went throw the windshield. It ended up killing both of his parents on impact.

Renee's dad had died when she was 14 years old. Marie and Renee were living on the base in Camp San Luis Obispo, CA. at the time. Southern California, before her dad had died was Renee's favorite transfer ever. Hot and sunny, near the ocean it felt like heaven to her.

It was during this conversation with Charlie, that Renee decided that Southern California was where she was going to go. They could make a good life their. Renee told Charlie that she and Bella were moving into her mom's old house. The house had never sold after her mother's death. So that's what Renee did. When Renee's dad had died the Army had given Renee and her mom, 6 months to find a housing off base.

Marie bought the house with her husband's life insurance money, and saved a little of the money to give to Renee for her college fund. Marie had told Renee that she thought that Renee's father and herself, had moved her around enough. Marie had thought it would make her daughter's life better, if she were able to start and finish high school in one town.

When the girls pulled up to the house a few days later. It was a sunny day out, the sea gulls were making all kinds of racket outside. The front picture window faced the street. It wasn't a mansion in fact the house could be called very small. It was maybe 800 square feet. Yellow siding on the outside, with a rather weather beatin' looking green shingled roof on top. There were green shutters on each side of the front porch windows. The front porch held a well used front porch swing, and an old white rocking chair.

That chair was something that Renee remembered being packed up, and moved to every place that she had ever been transferred to growing up.

It was the middle of summer already. Renee knew that she had many things that she needed to do before the start of the school year. First she called Charlie. She asked him to help get her records for the La Push Grade school, so she could get a job in California.

Renee had her teacher's license and degree. Now she was just worried about finding a job close to home. Not to mention this close to the start of a new school year. Renee didn't want to leave Bella in day care twenty-four-seven.

Next she called the Local School's Education Department, and talked to the women who was in charge of hiring new teachers.

Then the house needed a good cleaning, and the carpets need to be replaced. The furniture was old and dusty, but it was home. They were home.

The next couple of weeks went by in a blur. Renee had found a great daycare provider down the block. Bella had already been there a couple of times. Being a signal mom was not working out the way Renee had figured it would.

She did get an interview with the local school district, and then had a 2nd interview.

Charlie would call constantly. He was looking for news on his daughter, and wondering if they needed anything. He was always trying to help. Renee didn't want help. She wanted to be carefree. Well guess what you can't be carefree when you have a baby. Life doesn't work out that way. No. Renee knew that. She was trying her best to keep her thoughts off of the things, that she had found out about after her mother's death. Trying her best to keep those thoughts out of her head.

Well don't it just figure that life doesn't work out that way that she thought it would.

Renee got the job. She would be teaching the 1st grade at new grade school.

She put a lot of work into the old house. The house was quickly becoming a home to her all over again. Memories both good and bad lived within these walls. She found out that she loved turning the old house into her home. One with her own flare of style.

Renee got into a routine, as well as Bella. One day lead to another and both of their lives become common. Isn't that how life it supposed to be?

Bella 1st birthday came and went. Charlie even flew down to California, to see it with his own eyes.

Charlie was a great father. Even as selfish as Renee was being, she could see that.

Believe it or not Renee really enjoyed spending those few days with Charlie. They were never going to get back together again, but they were at least becoming friends. If for no

other reason than their precious baby Bella.

A/N: This is my first story.

Please R&R Let me know what you think about it, please.

I took some liberates with Renee's father's first name. And even more with his last name that will be relieved later in the story.

~Hugs~ Izzy