The reception was done, the bride and groom had long since departed, and Alice Cullen was snapping impossibly precise orders at the clean-up staff, following each one with the kind of smile that probably would have melted Fuck you, you lazy-ass fucker! into honeyed goo.

Renee had had three, maybe four, no, let's call a spade a spade, six flutes of Dom Perignon, and was currently weeping into her seventh.

Charlie sat back in his chair, earning a death stare from Alice each time he rocked back on two antique mahogany legs. He watched as Phil stroked his wife's - his wife's - hair and whispered comforting nonsense.

"I'm sorry," Renee sniffled out for the millionth time, "It's just that she's so tiny, and I can't believe she's gone, I mean I just always thought it would be so much later and then she called us up and zip!" - She snapped her fingers but they were wet from the condensation on her glass so it made no sound - "I'm somebody's mother-in-law, you know? I just can't believe it." She sniffled again, followed up with another muffled 'Sorry.'

"I know," Phil said gently, even though he really didn't and odds were never would. "It's crazy. It feels like just yesterday she was a little girl at our wedding."

Charlie's jaw clenched as an errant thought ran through his mind: It feels like just yesterday she was a little who-knows-what at our wedding.

He knocked back the last of his tonic and over-priced gin, said nothing, watched.

"Nay-Nay, you know I'm here for you right?" Phil asked, touching his fingers to her chin and directing her gaze from the fizz and pop of her champagne to his face.

Renee smiled, sighed tearily. "I know."

"Good, cos I really mean it. And..." He hesitated. "I really don't want you to take this the wrong way, but - "

Renee's eyes widened. "Oh shit! Shit!" She grabbed Phil's hand, peeled the sleeve of his shirt back and peered at the shiny wrist-watch that was supposedly fully functional 600 feet under. (He hadn't had a chance to test it out yet.) "You've gotta go. Oh I'm so sorry," she wailed again.

Phil laughed, leaned in and kissed her lips twice. "Right. But I could stay a few more minutes, if you think it'll help."

"No, no!" She wiped the tears away from her cheeks hurriedly, pulling half her eye makeup down the tracks. "I don't want you to miss your flight." Her eyes widened again at the thought. "Shit! What if you actually miss your flight?"

Phil shrugged, but he couldn't quite make the movement as fluid as he would have liked. "I could always take a later one, sort something out."

Renee rolled her eyes. "Oh come on. You're cutting it fine as it is. You and I both know how important these play-offs are."

"Sure, but they're not more important than - "

Renee cut into Phil's earnest attempt at protest. "Yes they are. They are." She stroked his cheek, smiled wide. "I'm fine, really. I'm just being all mother-of-the-bride. You go."

-----

Phil did go a few kisses and a tight hug later, and Esme took Renee aside, dabbed painstakingly at the blackened rivulets on her face.

"Alice is livid," she said.

"What?" Renee asked, her whole body suddenly tense. (Alice was a lovely girl. Lovely and all kinds of intimidating.)

Esme laughed at Renee's panicked expression. "Not with you. With this mascara. It was supposed to be waterproof." She flashed a wry smile. "She's busy drafting stiff letters to the manufacturers as we speak."

"Oh." Renee laughed, felt the fresh tension drain out of her body taking a good portion of the whole day's anxiety with it. "Well, to be fair, I did give it one hell of a deluge."

Esme just smiled, dabbed a couple more times and pronounced her job done. She checked her own makeup briefly in the mirror of her compact, and then, as she was zipping up her purse, Renee asked "How do you do it?"

"Always carry moist towelettes, Alice has drilled it into me."

"No, no." Renee cocked her head to one side. "Well yes, that's a good tip, but I meant... you're so together, so composed. Edward's your baby as much as Bella is mine, but you're taking this whole thing so well. No hysteria, no tears."

Esme smiled, looked down as she did so. "Edward is..." she paused, looked up at Renee. "I know I'll never really lose him."

"Right," Renee shook her head, grinned sheepishly. "You're right. I'm being ridiculous. I should really save all this blubbering up for a funeral."

Again Esme looked down at the ground before meeting Renee's eyes. Then she reached a hand up and stroked her clean cheek with a strange and aching tenderness. "It's just the Dom Periognon," she said softly, her golden eyes too beautiful, too motherly for someone who had to be the younger of the pair. "That's why I've been avoiding it like the plague all night."

She let her hand fall from Renee's face, unzipped her purse again and handed her a monogrammed handkerchief.

Renee accepted it gratefully, wiped at her nose. "Smart lady."

Esme smiled. "Do you want Carlisle and me to drive you back to your hotel? Or you're very welcome to stay with us if you prefer. We have a spare room." She leaned forward with a little sigh. "And now, I suppose, a spare spare."

Renee shook her head. "No, no, no, it's late and you must both be dead on your feet. I'm fine to catch a cab. But thank you. You're gorgeous. And your son is gorgeous, even if he's taking my baby away."

-----

Renee called a cab but it never came; such was often the case in a sleepy town like Forks. She waited out front for twenty minutes, and since Charlie and Billy had insisted on waiting with her - You never know who's out there, the Chief here had a suspected shoplifter at the Thriftway just last month - she realized she'd actually be putting them out of their misery if she took them up on their offer of a ride.

-----

"What turn-off? Port Angeles way?" Charlie asked. They had dropped Billy home a moment ago and were now coming to the intersection that would take them out of La Push.

Renee groaned, rubbed at her head, and her hair, which had been perfectly styled à la Cullen, caught in her fingertips, flickered up in the reddish light at ridiculous angles.

Charlie chose that moment to sneak a sidelong glance at her and his chest swelled and contracted at the sight.

"It's actually past Port Angeles, and I'm beat. I mean I'm really beat," Renee sniffled, blew her nose on Esme's handkerchief, reached out and squeezed Charlie shoulder affectionately. "You've gotta be pretty tired too." He managed a quick smile and Renee smiled back, drew her hand away. "And besides, my rental's at your place... Why don't we just head back to Forks? I'll spend the night in Bella's room."

Charlie nodded tightly, said "Sounds like a plan," even though it sounded like the worst damn plan in the history of shitty plans, because he wanted his house, empty and still, he wanted a six of Vitamin-R and the wee hours of the morning to himself.

The thought of Renee in Bella's bed, sleeping soundly while their daughter was off being... married... it felt wrong.

And yet it felt right, horribly, tantalizingly right, the two of them under the same roof on this night.

It was wrong. It was right.

Either way it scared the crap out of him.

-----

Charlie stepped out of the kitchen, two already-opened cans in his hands. He held one out for Renee.

He had removed his jacket and tie, and Renee had changed into Bella's sweats; he noticed that although she had kept her figure over the years, the pants were just a little too tight around her hips and thighs.

Renee eyed the can and winced. "Ugh, I shouldn't."

Charlie held steady. "But you will."

Renee smiled ruefully, took the beer, sipped at it as she headed for the couch, said "You know me too well."

Charlie nodded behind her back.

-----

They sat on the couch and talked for nearly an hour about how Bella was tiny and how they'd thought it would be so much later than this and how now they were someone's parents-in-law. Well, Renee talked mostly. Charlie just nodded along, smiled at appropriate intervals, snorted when she said the Cullens seemed pretty much Stepford-perfect and she didn't know how their two-left-feet, fashion-challenged daughter had gained entry into that club.

"She looked different today," Renee said softly, nursing her second can of Vitamin-R. "She looked so beautiful."

Charlie arched an eyebrow. "She's always been beautiful."

Renee rolled her eyes, leaned forward and smacked his shoulder with her free hand. "I know that. Don't worry Charlie, however glossy Edward's hair may be I still think she's too good for him. I am her mother, after all."

They sipped in silence for a couple of minutes and then Renee set her can down on the coffee table and sighed. "Hey how do you feel about this? I mean really? You're sitting there all stoic and nodding and placating me like you always do, but... am I an idiot for freaking out about this?"

"No," Charlie said simply, and for a moment Renee thought he was just going to leave it at that. But then he set his empty can down next to hers and said "They're too young. I told them that. And the kid left her once. He just took off and left her." Charlie swallowed, spoke reluctantly, because he knew that even if he didn't intend there to be a double meaning in what he was saying - and he didn't - it would inevitably be there, hanging bitterly in the air between them. "Now that there's a wedding... and if there's a baby... if it happens again..." He trailed off, tired of searching for an innocuous ending to his sentence, leaned back against the couch and repeated "No."

His hand was in his lap, palm up. He seemed vulnerable and Renee felt a surge of self-loathing, a surge of longing, of wishing she'd been something else, someone else, someone better. Her fingers slid tremblingly along the leather of the couch, crept up onto Charlie's thigh and tangled between his.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Charlie just shrugged, smiled a nervous, involuntary smile, gave her fingers a quick squeeze, forced his hand to slacken and let hers go.

He let her go.

He let her go just like he had let her go all those years before, and Renee had been glad of it then. She had been glad that he hadn't made things harder, because she had been a girl with a dream, a girl who wanted a man with a dream; the poet, the bio-medical scientist, the minor-league baseball player. Renee had always been chasing after something; she had always been what people refer to with a delicate mix of derision and admiration as a 'free spirit.'

She had been a girl with a dream, and mothers and fathers and happy homes in sleepy towns were fine, but she had wanted other things, she had always wanted more...

And yet now she found she was a forty year old woman, a forty year old woman who had just watched her baby get married, and she wanted these arms around her, these particular arms she was tugging at, familiar and solid through, she wanted these arms that had always been there, even if she hadn't felt them snake around her body like this in forever, she knew they had always been there.

Her chest shook with sobs, and Charlie was silent, he held her silently, there were no whispered words, no strings of comforting nonsense at her ear. But his mouth moved against her neck, his lips quivered around nothing, he leaned further into her skin and the feel of his mustache, rough-smooth and old-fashioned and so much like home brought new tears to Renee's eyes, sent them trickling down her cheeks.

She lifted her hands up from his shoulders, slid them into his hair, which was thick, but thinning, and a little greasy from whatever crap Alice had put in it, let her thumb stretch out and trace the sharp line of his cheekbone.

She shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut so tight she saw stars.

Then she pulled back slightly and kissed his jaw. She kissed his jaw and dragged her lips along the half-dark burn of his skin, and when she did, she felt Charlie's whole body jump, she felt his heart thumping in his chest suddenly, like somebody - like she - had flipped a switch and he had come to life.

Things happened very quickly after that. It might have been a second or two before their mouths were joined and the buttons of his shirt were slipping out out of their holes. It might have been a second or two before they were both panting and desperately seeking each other's skin.

Charlie was in heaven. The taste of her tongue was the same as it had been when they were teenagers, when they were in love, when she had been in love with him, because she had been, she had to have been, even if only for a little while, she had to have been...

The taste of her tongue was warmth and wanting, it was golden sweetness, fresh sheets, dirty martinis out of I Love NY mugs and all the Christmas mornings he'd missed.

Charlie was in heaven, but he wasn't happy. He knew that this would not make either of them happy. Because meaningless sex was great, he'd had more than his fair share of it in the last twenty years, but nothing would ever be, could ever be meaningless when it came to his Renee...

Phil's Renee, he reminded himself, and with that sick, sobering thought he remembered that he shouldn't do this.

I shouldn't. And I won't.

He pulled back, cradled Renee's face in his hands and lifted her mouth from his bared shoulder.

"Renee," he said, his voice a shallow gasp. "We gotta stop this."

"I don't want to stop," Renee breathed, her eyes hooded and heavy, her hands sliding up to his neck.

Charlie smiled miserably as he reached up and pried her fingers from his flesh, he smiled because he knew he would take I don't want to stop to bed with him tonight, and every other night after this.

"You'll wish you had." He managed to say that a little more evenly. "This isn't you. You're not a cheater."

Charlie was right. Renee's breathing slowed as she took in what he'd said. She may have been a lot of things in her time but she had never been a cheater. Her path in life had always been clean, and all the more jagged for it.

Charlie was right. This wasn't her.

"You're so good," she whispered. "Why are you so good?"

Charlie didn't know how to answer that so he said nothing, and Renee stared unblinkingly up at him, her hands pulling his shirt back around his body, but stopping there and clinging on, fisted in the rich, white fabric.

She was crying again when she said, "It's true. You're the best man. You're the best man in the world. Ever. Gandhi had nothing on you, Charlie Swan."

"Well yeah," he teased, gruff and low, "You just now figurin' that out?"

Renee laughed and he did too and for a brief moment lightness reigned.

But then she looked him in the eye again and said, "No. It's always been true. I've always known."

Charlie held her gaze, contained a brutal-soft shudder within his body, just barely eked the dangerous words out: "But it wasn't enough."

"No," Renee whispered sadly, "Not for the girl I was then."

In the privacy of her mind she added Not for the girl with a dream. Not for the girl who wanted a man with a dream.

She didn't say it aloud because it would have hurt him and she didn't trust herself to be able to explain.

If she had said it, if she had blurted it out unthinkingly like she'd blurted out so many other things in her lifetime, Charlie would only have steeled himself, nodded, waited for his heart to untwist from around his ribs.

But he would have answered her silently: Well, you were a fool, you're a fool, because he was right under your nose, the man with a dream, I've had a dream, 18 to 42, and it's you. It's you and me. Your love, mine. Always. Renee.