A/N: I cave. A few of you asked for a continuation and it got me thinking, so you win. Here is a part two for The Vessel. Hope you like it as much as the first part.

~Miss. E. Thompson

Bella's been missing for months. I've plastered fliers all over Forks and Seattle and anywhere else in the state of Washington that was willing to post the flier for me. There was no explanation to how she disappeared. Surveillance had caught her leaving work like usual, she locked up the door and headed toward the alley way that went around to the parking lot, after that she disappeared off camera. Video told us she never made it to the other end of the alleyway where another camera would have picked her up. Somehow she disappeared in that alley way and a dead body was left. A man that had been off the radar for years, the body was so bad it was like the man had been boiled from the inside. Nothing made sense.

All we knew was Bella went into that alley and only a male's body came out. Every officer and detective that worked the case was of confounded, they had no idea what to do and the case had quickly gone cold. There had been spikes of hope every once and a well. A finger print close to Bella's would show up at a crime scene or someone would say they caught a glimpse of her, but the reports were scattered across the country with no consistency, there was no way she could be involved in any of it.

I cracked open another can of vitamin R as I slouched in the chair. This is what I had been reduced to. Trapped in this house with all my memories of her as I drank myself to death. I'd retired from being the Chief of Police a few weeks after Bella had gone missing, committing myself to finding her, but as the case got colder and colder, it got harder to pull myself out of bed in the morning and put one foot in front of the other. Now I was resigned to know that I was never going to see my little girl again, she was gone and if I had my way, I would be too.

Billy and Sue used to come around and try to make me do things to keep me from burying myself in a hole, but they had even given up and I couldn't find it in myself to care. Digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole I couldn't possibly climb out of.

I could faintly hear a motor pull up in front of the house, but I didn't move to check it out. Was probably just someone parking there while they went to one of the neighbor's houses. That idea fell through when I heard someone banging on the door. I groaned, throwing my head back against the head rest of the chair before hauling my ass up to see who was bothering to knock on the door. Everyone in town knew I wasn't taking visitors.

I stumbled my way to the door in the dark, not bothering to turn on the light. Throwing open the door I was surprised to see two men standing on the other side. Both were wearing suits, one was young and tall while the other was older and bald on top. Behind them was an old black car, something that I used to see more often when I was a kid.

"Whaddaya want?" I grumbled, leaning against the door for support. They both dug in their pockets and pulled out wallet looking things to flash FBI badges.

"Agents Wilson and Criss. Sir, we came to talk to you about your daughter, Bella." I felt the air leave me and I clung to the door a little harder.

"Whoa!" The taller guy yelled and grabbed me by my arm to steady me.

"Let's get you in a chair." He grumbled and yanked me toward the kitchen while the other walked in behind him and shut the door. I was plopped into a chair and the older agent, Wilson, sat down across from me.

"What about Bella?" I asked. It didn't matter the amount of booze I'd guzzled today, I suddenly felt sober for the first time in months.

"Agent Criss and I were working a case in Detroit a week or so ago. There was an explosion in a warehouse and I'm sorry to say that we believe your daughter was inside when it happened.

"An explosion? What was my little girl doing in Detroit? She hated the cold, anything farther north than California and she didn't want to go. I was surprised when she came to live with me and stayed here as long as she did." I knew I was ramblin' and I was avoiding the statement they had made.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Swan, but we traced your daughter back to a motel room and we found this inside." Agent Wilson handed me an envelope. It was thin and with Bella's handwriting on the front. I could feel the tears in the back of my eyes, I refused to let them fall. I ripped open the envelope and pulled out a thin sheet of cheap motel paper. Before I even unfolded the paper I could see the watermarks to tell me she was crying when she wrote this. The page was filled with her handwriting and the paper shook a little as I tried to read.

Dad, I can't explain what's happened in the last few months and even if I could, I know you wouldn't believe me. I'm sorry things happened this way, that I wasn't a better daughter, that I didn't spend more time with you. You're the best dad a girl could ask for. In the last few months some things have happened that changed everything for me. It's worse than when the Cullens left, this time I can't go on. I'm sorry. I can't say that enough. I've been forced to do some truly despicable things and if I go on, I'll be forced to do more. I know you would be disgusted if you ever found out what I've done and that makes what I'm about to do more bearable. I love you, dad, don't forget that. Tell Jake that he was a great friend and I'll truly miss him. Tell mom that I'm glad she met Phil and that he'll take care of her. Dad, I don't know what else to say. I love you and I'm sorry.

Forgive me,

Bella

I let out a sob as I finished reading. She thought she couldn't come home, she died with regret and that made everything worse. But beyond that, admitting that Bella was dead, my baby girl's gone forever was more than I could take.

"Do…. Do you know what she meant when she wrote 'what's happened in the last few months'? Bella knew I would always listen to her and she thought I wouldn't believe her." I looked to Agent Wilson for answers, but I could see he didn't have any for me before he even opened his mouth.

"I'm truly sorry, Mr. Swan, but we know very little about your daughter or what happened during the time she was missing. If you don't mind, Mr. Swan, would you tell us about her, it could help us to better piece together what went on, to know a little about her personality." I wiped at the tears and cleared my throat. I stood up on wobbly legs and motioned for the agents to follow me into the living room.

"Bella's always been a special girl." I said and walked to the far wall and pulled some pictures out of a desk drawer. I turned back to the agents and sat down in my chair, flipping off the TV. From my chair you could see the line of pictures that started when Bella was just a few hours old to a picture Angela had taken of her a few months before she disappeared.

"Her mom and I separated when she was only a couple months old. I only got to see her for a couple weeks during the year. She was always bright. Sharp as a tack, I'd like to say she got that from me, but I honestly haven't a clue where it truly came from. You couldn't get anything past this girl. She was so observant, she could pick up the slightest change in emotion during a conversation and veer the conversation away from whatever had caused it. She didn't much like attention to be all on her. She liked to mostly be in the background when it came to situations.

She only moved here to Washington for an extended amount of time when she was seventeen. Her mom had just got remarried and she felt like the third wheel, plus she said it gave her an opportunity to come stay with her old man. Renee was always a bit scatterbrained and I think Bella grounded her a little. Bella was very responsible, even when she was little. She'd remind Renee that she needed to pay the bills, to get groceries, that someone's birthday was coming up or an anniversary." I held out the picture of Bella and I when she was six years old. Billy had taken her shopping while she was staying during the summer and he'd bought her a fishing pole, it was bright pink. The picture was her sitting on my lap with her new pole in hand and a wide grin on her face.

"That was her first fishing pole. A friend of mine had taken her shopping with him and his kids. She came running in the house with that pole as soon as the truck was in park. A grin the size of Texas on her face as she held it out to me. 'Daddy, look what I got! It's a pole just like yours, now I can go fishing, too!' She wasn't much for fishing, but she went with me without fuss, put her line in the water even though she didn't expect to catch anything." Agent Wilson gave a small smile and passed the picture to Agent Criss. I wiped the tears away from my face again before I took the picture back and placed it behind the other picture.

"She was an amazing cook, too." I pulled out the picture of Bella, she was around ten, standing on a chair to see the top of the stove to cook without assistance.

"Neither Renee or I were good in the kitchen, but Bella, she taught herself everything she knew. She cooked better than any cook in any restaurant I've been to. And read, she loved to read. And not just those novels and picture books, but those old classics and plays. There's this one book she's got, I've bought it for her a good three times because she would read it over and over again and beat the binding into submission." I took a deep breath and leaned back in my chair.

"Some of that changed when she met that boy though. That Cullen boy was no good. Sure he treated her good enough, but she suddenly needed him for everything, it was almost like she clung to him like a life line. She jumped into first love feet first, never expecting it end. And he when he left, he broke her to pieces, ripped away her self-esteem and stomped it into the mud. It took her months to even start to recover, she was so deep in a depression that I thought I was going to have to put her in one of those mental hospitals. But she finally came around and pulled herself together, got some friends and threw herself into her school work. She got scholarships from, I like it was three of those Ivy League schools. She turned them all down to take a full ride to college in Seattle so she could stay close to home, closer to me." I cleared my throat again and wiped away some tears.

"Bella was always good with kids and she was going to be a teacher, be an English teacher so she could make a living doing what she loved to do. But I guess she'll never get the chance to do that now." The tears were pouring down my face without any sign that they would stop any time soon. The pain had taken hold, settling into the middle of my chest, making my heart throb as I thought about her. I reached over to the table and grabbed my beer that I had discarded when the agents had gotten here. I didn't know what I was going to do now that I knew that Bella was gone. Drinking myself to death would take too long, it would be years before I would get to see my little girl again and that made the pain in my chest even worse. Having it confirmed that Bella was no longer even on the same plane as me. She was gone and yet, I was still here and suffering and waiting for something to take me out.

"Like we said earlier Mr. Swan. We're deeply sorry for your loss." I nodded and hauled myself up from my chair again.

"Thank you, for coming by to tell me." I managed out and walked the two men to the door. It had started to rain outside and the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees since they had arrived. The two men nodded and headed out into the rain while I shut the door behind them. I turned around and headed back into the living room and picked up my pistol. There was nothing left for me here and there was no sense in sticking around, there wasn't anyone that would really miss me.

I place a single round in the gun and held it under my chin as I clicked off the safety. I felt a stray tear run down my face as I closed my eyes. I could see Bella behind my eyelids, could see her smiling. I held on to the image as I braced myself and pulled the trigger.

The last thing I heard was the bang as the shot rang out and there was pain for a split second before I could feel myself falling. It was just quiet and black for a minute or two before a sound came to my ears, a gurgling sound that I faintly remembered. I opened my eyes to see the pale blue walls of Bella's room, when I looked down I could see baby Bella laying her crib. Her wide eyes staring up at me, her fingers in her mouth, muffling the sound of her trying to talk. I smiled and slowly bent down to pick her up. In that moment I felt true happiness.