Work Text:
October, 2005:
When Billy Black received a call from a man he’d never met; and frankly thought the walking corpse was something made up by his grandfather to make him eat his vegetables, he prepared for everything… but this.
It was a dance he knew the moves to all too well. The partner was the same, all that had changed was the why.
“Are you starting an armada?” Billy scoffed from his closet doorway. Charlie Swan’s safe had grown in the fifteen years he was able to keep his guns in his own house.
“Dad left me enough for a militia,” Charlie grumbled, installing a second anchor to the floorboards. “It’s only for a few months.”
“This is you being over cautious right?” Billy asked. Charlie had always been safe, had always been over cautious. He had just gotten Bella back, it made sense he’d go over every precaution to keep her safe. It’s why you babyproofed a house right? But this wasn’t a clumsy toddler and a corner of a coffee table.
“Not this time,” Charlie sighed, standing up to shake the edge of the safe - it didn’t budge.
Watching Charlie stow a second, smaller safe on the top shelf of the closet Billy wondered if it ever was out of abundance of caution. Charlie had shown up with the safe for the first time in the middle of a storm, a less than two week old Bella in the backseat. Sarah rocked her to sleep as Billy helped take up enough carpet to reach the subfloor. ‘It’s a rough transition, all you can do is be there for her. Help her, protect her.’
The second time Billy installed the safe himself, Harry and he carried it out as Charlie lay catatonic on the couch, clutching a baby blanket and wedding band to his chest. And here they were again. This time Charlie had called, eleven o’clock at night, to apologize for unexpectedly missing their baseball watch party. He tried to blame it on work but the blood-curdling scream that pierced through the call told Billy all he needed to know. ‘Bring it over,’ was all he said. Thirty-three minutes later Charlie was on his doorstep; eyes bloodshot and sweat on his brow and a hunch in his back, he wasn’t a twenty year old man anymore. Eighteen years had gone by and still the only words of advice he could think of were, ‘It’s a rough transition, all you can do is be there for her. Help her, protect her.’
“How are we going to handle work?” Billy asked flatly. In Charlie’s roughest patch Billy dropped off the bullets to Charlie’s revolver every single morning, collecting them every single night. The small town department required him to have the gun on his person at all times, they never said it had to be loaded.
“She can’t get it,” Charlie said, flashing his hip holster, hidden under a baggy flannel Billy could almost swear was stolen from his own closet.
“Maybe Jake could stop by some days,” Billy offered.
“I think we’re past that,” Charlie said, beginning to collect his tools.
“Have you thought about taking her to somebody? Getting her to talk to somebody?” Billy asked delicately. He was the one who had made that first appointment for Charlie, tricked him into the car, used some lame excuse like a boat motor or something. He drove him an hour there and an hour back every Thursday for a year and eight months.
“I’ve offered.”
“She said no?”
“She doesn’t say much these days,” Charlie muttered.
“What does Renee say?” Billy asked against his better judgement.
“Says ‘she’s just a kid. Kids do these kinds of things.’ Thinks it all just work out, it did for her after all,” Charlie said, kicking at the corner of the beige carpet. It was the first time in weeks Billy had heard emotion in his friend’s voice.
“Glad to see she hasn’t changed a bit,” Billy muttered. It was a well known fact he wasn’t Renee’s number one fan, no one that knew her was. No one besides Bella. Ever since the kid could talk everything was Renee this, Renee that, when can I go back to Renee?
Billy took a deep breath before the question he dreaded to ask, “you know I hate to ask this…”
“Don’t. I just got her back.”
Billy sighed, maybe it was for the best, maybe it would all work out, maybe she was just a kid. Or maybe, she was her father’s kid. The man who stole Billy’s fishing boat in the dead of night to do something stupid. The man Billy had rocked as he wailed his lungs out in the middle of the ocean. The man who had a large part of him die when Renee closed that door.
“Do I get the combo to these?”
“No,” Charlie said definitively.
“Wedding anniversary?”
“No.”
“You liar,” Billy laughed. “You use that for everything.”
“Which Bells knows.” Oh. Oh. He wasn’t being over cautious.
“Your birthday? Her birthday? My birthday?”
“You don’t need in it.”
“What if someone breaks in?” Billy asked, growing more and more nervous that was a legitimate possibility.
Charlie turned on his heel, “if somebody unbolts it and then lugs all six hundred pounds out of this shoebox and you don’t wake up you’ll be in trouble not them.”
“Don’t I need to be able to protect myself?”
“Yeah, and shoot Jake that’ll be good,” Charlie whispered as they passed Jacob’s room.
“You alright?” Billy asked, following him down the hall.
“Bell’s tough, she’ll be okay.”
“I’m sure she will be but I asked about you. Will you be ok?” Billy asked as Charlie held the front door open for him.
“I’m fine,” Charlie shrugged.
“You don’t have to lie to me, we’ve done this before.” Billy’s hand softly landed on Charlie’s arm.
“I’m fine. Thanks, Bill.”
“You want to stay for a beer? I bought a fresh pack of Ballantines, I could call Harry. We could watch a game,” Billy offered. He’d bought the beer three weeks ago, the six pack collecting dust as it waited for Charlie. Billy didn’t drink but if he did it wouldn’t be Ballantine. But Charlie hadn’t come by and the beer sat un-drunk, the game unwatched.
“Not tonight.”
“One drink.”
“I don’t like to leave her for too long. Can’t lock up everything. Thanks though,” Charlie shrugged off Billy’s hand, heading down the front porch’s stairs two at a time.
Billy nodded, watching as Charlie walked to the red Chevy, tossing his tools into the bed. A clattering thud was the only sound the two made.
“Charlie,” Billy called as the driver door opened.
“Yeah, Billy?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too, Billy. Me too.” The truck’s engine roared to a start, the final note of the conversation the two men would never speak of again.
Long after the little pickup disappeared on the windy forest road Billy flipped the porch light on. Perhaps Charlie wouldn’t admit it just yet but one night he would need a life preserver and the porch light would be on, it always had been.