hi! quarantine has made me lose my mind so i'm back on my eleven year old shit and writing twilight fics, except this one might be good!

and yes, there's gonna be a lot of canon divergence because, let's face it, stephenie made some questionable choices.

Holly Greene hadn't stepped a foot in Forks, Washington for almost ten years.

The last time she was here she was fifteen and she was watching her father be hoisted into the ground in a cheap, homemade casket kindly built and donated to the family by Billy Black. Her father had been good friends with Billy. He'd been good friends with almost everyone in town and even most of the Quileute tribe members who lived on the reservation. Frank Greene had been a social butterfly and the town's premiere (only) electrician. He'd worked in almost everyone's house and made friends with everyone.

It was hard not to like Frank. He was a jovial man, the perfect archetype of what most people thought of when they thought of the Pacific Northwest—he kept a bushy beard, wore suspenders with flannels, drove a pickup truck, enjoyed cheap beer, and was a devoted Seahawks fan. Everyone liked Frank so much that they kept quiet about their concerns about his wife, Sara, who was just a little too odd for most of the folks in Forks. But Frank loved her, so they loved her too, despite her heavy patchouli perfume, jingling jewelry, and constant offers to read everyone's palms or tarot cards.

Holly was born just under a year after Frank and Sara were married in a small ceremony in their backyard. Charlie Swan, the chief of police, was Frank's best man. They'd been best friends ever since Frank took him under his wing on the high school football team when he was a senior and Charlie was a shrimpy sophomore. Charlie and his wife, Renee, lived across the road and about a half mile down from the Greenes. Holly remembered her dad, Charlie, and Billy spending many an evening out by the bonfire with beers in the backyard shooting the shit. She also remembered being forced to play with Charlie's daughter, Bella, who was three years her junior and often much too solemn for Holly. Then Charlie and Renee divorced, and she moved away with Bella, and Holly noticed a somber shift in her Uncle Charlie's demeanor.

And then, when Holly was eleven, everything really went wrong in her life, so much so that she ended up watching her father die right before her eyes when she was fifteen, and then had to watch him get buried in a homemade coffin a few days later.

But Holly didn't want to think about that. She'd spent much of the past nine years of her life actively trying not to remember all of that.

She was, however, pleasantly surprised to find that the old family home on Evergreen Drive had hardly changed since she'd been gone. Her father had built the house for the family when she was too small to remember. She wasn't exactly sure how, but after he died, the rights to the house somehow got transferred to her name, so the little craftsman was all hers now, and had been since she'd turned eighteen. She had waited to return until she was ready, and after a few years suffering with high rent and tiny apartments in Seattle, her old house in Forks sounded pretty good.

"Holly Greene!"

A smile broke out on her face as soon as she heard that familiar voice—Charlie Swan. He'd pulled up to her driveway in his police cruiser, looking like he was fresh off his shift, and she wasted no time in sprinting into his embrace. He laughed with some surprise but hugged her back without question, like no time at all had passed since he'd last seen his goddaughter.

Holly pulled back, wiping an accidental tear from her eye with her fist. Charlie smelled like her dad. She was fairly sure that he still used the same aftershave, the same her dad had used, all these years later.

"No tears, kiddo," Charlie said. He sniffled, trying not to get too emotional himself. "You're gonna make me cry too, now, seeing you all grown up. I swear you've gotten even taller since I've seen you."

Holly laughed. She'd been a solid 5'11 since she was, well, eleven or so.

"I'm not taller, but I'd like to think that I'm a lot wiser since you've last seen me," she said. "I was kind of a reckless teen when I left, huh?"

Charlie shrugged and said, "Every kid goes through that phase, especially kids who were dealing with everything you were...but I heard you went to nursing school, huh?"

"How'd you know that?"

"The University of Washington accidentally sent some mail to your old place here," Charlie said. "I saw it on my way into the station one morning and grabbed it...and I know, that's a criminal offense, opening someone else's mail, but I won't tell if you won't."

Holly smiled. Charlie had not changed at all.

"What made you decide to become a nurse?" Charlie asked. "I always thought you'd end up doing something artistic like your mother."

"Yeah, well, unfortunately the arts don't pay well," Holly said. "I ended up being pretty good at science and math in school, and girls who are good at science and math get pushed into nursing. I didn't have any other plan, so I went with it, and I got lucky, because I ended up like working in the ER a whole hell of a lot more than I thought I would."

"So are you gonna go work at Forks Community Hospital?"

"I'm hoping so. They didn't have anything posted about needing help, but I called last week anyway and they agreed to set up an interview with me tomorrow. The hospital administrator is on vacation, so I'm interviewing with a Dr. Cullen...anything I should know about him?"

Holly knew that if anyone had the know on people in Forks, it was Charlie, whether he liked it or not.

"Yeah, I know Carlisle," Charlie said. "Nice guy. I'm sure you won't have any problems with him as long as you're your usual self."

"Thanks, Charlie."

"Just the truth, kid."

They shared another smile and Holly felt another couple of tears burning at the back of her eyes. He was so much like her father. Would her father look at her with the same pride? Would he even care?

"Well, I'm gonna call Billy and ask him to send Jacob and a few of the boys down to help you get unloaded," Charlie said, gesturing to the Uhaul parked haphazardly in the driveway.

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that," Holly said. "I don't want to bother them."

"No bother at all," Charlie said. "Billy's always looking for an excuse to get those boys to do something productive. And they'll all be happy to hear your back. And it will give me an excuse to use this fancy new cellphone I got."

"Charlie Swan has a cellphone?" Holly asked incredulously, causing them both to laugh. "Forks has really turned upside down since I left, hasn't it?"

Charlie shook his head. "You don't even know the half of it, Holls."