Her Knight In Shiny Armor

C3

Charlene looked down at her worn trainers. The awkwardness of her situation seeped into her making her feel uncomfortable.

Charlie Swan stared at her in silent contemplation .Was this girl really his daughter ?. Thoughts like these milled around his mind , causing him to feel strange.

She certainly looked like she is his daughter. Her hair and eyes mirrored his . It was just the nose and lips that wasn't his . They were familiar ,though .

They belonged to a forgotten time when he was happy with Arlene Parker, a woman that gave him hope and crushed it when she left .

" Do you have any pictures of your mom?", he finally broke the silence and she looked up. 

" Yes ," she said ," Only a few , but I'm sure if you knew her , you'd recognise her ".

He only nodded at that , while she herself picked up her backpack from the floor,where she'd discarded it earlier when she'd taken a seat on the couch .

Taking the time to rummage through the meagre contents of her backpack , she pulled out a small pocket-sized photo album , reaching out her arm to hand it over to him .

He took it readily , opening it to look through the few photos of the girl and her mother .

He recognised the blonde woman easily in the pictures . She looked older in some , but age didn't change her face much .

He looked up from the album a few moments later to look at the girl again .

There was only one way to make sure that she is his daughter . A DNA test wasn't as difficult to get , though where they'd get her mother's half of the DNA was going to be tricky.

Forks General Hospital had a department for DNA tests , courtesy of Doctor Cullen .

He could make an appointment for the test and in the meantime , as they wait for the results , he could house the girl .

He wasn't the kind of person to throw out a homeless person . He wasn't raised like that .

He handed back the album , gears turning in his head on how to approach such a sensitive subject .

He knew that some people refused DNA tests simply because they feared the outcome .

" Will you be willing to do a DNA test ?", he forced himself to ask , not beating around the bush , so to speak.

Charlene stashed the album into her backpack before answering " If that would help determine if I'm your child or not , then yeah sure , whatever ".

He smiled at the obvious careless teenage way of speaking . " Come , I'll show you to my room . You can sleep there . I don't exactly have guestrooms in this house . We'll find a more permanent solution when we find that you're my daughter . I'll take the couch . It's comfortable enough for me ."

The girl nodded . She understood clearly that she was , until proven otherwise, a guest only . She didn't mind that at all .

At least she won't be sleeping outside in the awful weather .
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The bed wasn't comfortable, Charlene realised later that night as she lay under the clean bedding that Charlie had brought her from the linen cupboard.

The mattress was probably old and Charlie didn't seem to mind sleeping on it .

Luckily there wasn't any springs sticking out because it was a foam mattress .

Maybe Charlie didn't like change and held onto the mattress because it was something familiar to him?. She wasn't sure about that theory of her , but that was the only explanation for the lumpy mattress .