Port Angeles Regional Airport had one gate, one baggage carousel, and a coffee kiosk that had been closed since before Bella could remember. She stepped off the small commuter plane into a wall of grey air — not quite rain, not quite fog, just a persistent wet that settled into her hoodie before she'd made it halfway down the ramp.

Her suitcase bumped behind her on wheels that stuck every few feet. Inside her chest, something tight and unfamiliar had been winding itself up since the layover in Seattle, and it hadn't loosened when the Olympic Peninsula appeared through the clouds — all dark green and endless, the way she remembered it from those summers years ago, back when two weeks at Charlie's felt like stepping into a different world.

That world had never been home. Not really.

She pushed through the sliding doors into the tiny arrivals area, scanning the rows of plastic chairs for a flash of blue eyes she'd know anywhere. They'd been doing this since they were kids — the summers, the visits, the awkward reunions that always started with neither of them knowing exactly how to pick back up. But this was different. This wasn't a visit. This was moving. This was Phoenix packed into two suitcases and a carry-on, Renée's voice still thin and bright on the phone from Jacksonville, and Bella standing in an airport in the middle of nowhere wondering if she'd made the right call.

She spotted the cruiser first — Charlie's, parked at the curb with the engine running, wipers dragging across the windshield at their lowest setting. And there, leaning against the hood with her arms crossed and her chin tilted like she'd been waiting for this moment to either be everything or nothing, was Clara.

Charlie stood a few feet behind her, hands in his jacket pockets, watching the terminal doors with the same patient, slightly uncomfortable expression he always wore when emotions were expected of him. He straightened when he saw Bella.

Bella's sneakers squeaked on the wet pavement as she stopped a few feet from her sister. Months. Since the last trip to Phoenix, since the last shared bag of gas station snacks and the last quiet argument about who had it worse — the one in Forks or the one with Renée. And now here they were, about to live under the same roof again, and Bella couldn't tell from Clara's face whether this was a homecoming or a test.