1.0

Katherine Swan crept into her sister's room with her father, Charlie, following lazily behind her. Today was her sister's eighteenth birthday. Bella was adamant about anyone making a big deal about it. But because Kate was an annoying little sister, she conspired with Alice to make it a bigger deal than Bella ever wanted it to be.

Bella lay peacefully asleep on her bed unaware that she was about to get woken up in an amazingly spectacularly rude way. Kate launched herself onto her sister's bed and started violently shoving her.

"Happy birthday, Bells!" she shouted in Bella's ear.

Her sister woke with a start and a little scream before pushing Kate off of the bed so that she landed on the floor. While Bella caught her breath, Kate howled with laughter.

"You should've seen your face," she said in between laughs.

Charlie sheepishly slumped in, "Happy Birthday, Bella. I tried to stop her."

Kate pushed herself up and sat on the edge of her sister's bed.

"I thought we agreed on no presents," Bella said as she eyed the packages in her father's hands.

"I never agreed so open mine first," Kate chirped taking the topmost package from Charlie's hands and shoving it Bella's way.

She gave Kate a slightly annoyed look before opening the wrapped package before her. When she tore away the paper, Bella gasped. Kate gave her a very old copy of a Compendium of Shakespeare's Works. She knew how much her sister loved Shakespeare so she figures she could at least dig this up.

"Where did you find this?" Bella asked disbelievingly.

Kate shrugged, "Bribed the right people, killed the others..."

"Kate," Charlie said sternly, apparently not finding the joke as amusing as she did.

"Okay, I bought if off of an online auction. Happy?" she rolled her eyes at her dad, "But my story was much more fun."

Charlie ignored his youngest daughter and handed Bella a camera with a bow on it, "It isn't wrapped so it doesn't count."

Bella took it with a small smile, "That's actually great! Thanks dad."

"It goes with this one from your mom. We coordinated. Well, she coordinated me. It's to put your pictures in from senior year," he explained as Bella unwrapped a scrapbook. "Senior year. How'd you get so old so fast?"

Bella's eyes snapped up at him, "I didn't! It's not that old."

"I don't know. Is that a grey hair?"

Bella leapt up from the bed and went straight to her mirror. After inspecting her head for any sign of aging she turned back to Charlie with another annoyed look. Kate laughed and ran back to her room to get ready for school.

"Happy birthday, grandma," she called back before slamming the door so she couldn't hear Bella's no doubt angry response.

Bella drove the two girls to school that day and when they got into the parking lot, they saw their friends waiting for them.

"Kate," Jessica exclaimed quickly as Kate got out of the truck, "Oh my god you'll never guess what happened last night! So I was..." Jessica cut herself off, "Bella! Today's the big day!"

A look of panic crossed Bella's face. Her eyes snapped to Kate who was smirking. She hadn't told Jessica of course but it was fun to see her sister panic at the thought of the school knowing that it was her birthday.

"...the R and J essay due."

Relief flooded Bella's face and Kate laughed at the expense of her sister.

"Oh yea..." she said.

Mike cleared his throat, "Wherefore art thou, Bella."

Kate gave Mike a look, "Don't ever do that again. Please."

The rest of the group laughed.

Bella reached into her bag and grabbed the camera that Charlie had given to her this morning.

"Hey, let me take a picture of you guys. My mom wants me to put together like a scrapbook full of memories," she explained.

The group gathered together and Bella snapped a picture with Kate squished in between Mike and Eric. Kate looked around Bella to see that Edward had just pulled into the parking lot.

"Oh look, Cullen's here," Mike said slowly.

Eric threw his hands up in mock celebration, "Yay..."

As the group went inside the school, Bella and Kate waited for Edward to approach them.

"You're drooling," Kate whispered to Bella.

Predictably, Bella quickly wiped her mouth before swatting her sister in the arm.

"You know you've finally got your supermodel walk down, Edward. I'm proud of you," she laughed.

Edward gave her an amused smile before turning to Bella, "Happy Birthday."

Bella shook her head, "Don't remind me."

"Well your birth is definitely something to celebrate."

"My aging is not."

"Your aging? I think eighteen is a little young to start worrying about that."

"That's one year older than you," she challenged.

"No it isn't, I'm one hundred and nine."

Kate rolled her eyes, "You're both old as hell."

They ignored her, "Maybe I shouldn't be dating such an old man," Bella joked, "It's gross. I should be thoroughly repulsed."

Edward kissed her with a huge grin on his face.

"Okay now I'm thoroughly repulsed," Kate muttered before speaking louder, "I waited on you guys to walk to class, now come on!"

Bella grabbed her bag and began to start walking toward the building with Kate before Edward called out to them.

"Wait a second," he turned to Bella, "Someone wants you."

The Swan girls turned around and saw Jacob walking toward them. At the sight of her best friend, Kate's heartbeat sped up just like it had been doing all summer. She felt her face grow hot as she tried to avoid his gaze but failed when she saw him smiling at her before talking to Bella. She really hoped that Edward didn't notice all the changes that were going on with her.

"I noticed," Edward said with a small smirk.

Kate rounded on him, "Okay stay out of my head."

Once Jacob had given Bella the dream catcher that he got for her birthday, he turned to look at Kate.

"You coming down to the rez later today?" Jacob asked her.

"Jacob, just because school's started doesn't mean you can get rid of me," she smiled.

Jacob laughed and put his hands up in surrender, "Alright, just checking. I think Embry would be upset if you didn't show."

"We all know that I don't go to see Embry."

Once what Kate said sank in, she flushed a deep crimson.

"I'll see you later, Jacob," she threw at him before running off into the safety of the school.

Time at Jacob's house was the same as it ever was. Jacob and Kate would talk about their days and work on Jacob's Rabbit. More often than not, Embry and Quil would join the two of them and lazily sit around and laugh with them. Today had been one of those special days where it was just the two of them.

"You ran away this morning," Jacob told in her in a forced nonchalant voice.

Kate almost dropped the wrench that she was holding in her hand. She was lying under the car working on the lower half of the engine and she was grateful that Jacob couldn't see her face turning red.

"I had a history test that I couldn't miss. I didn't want to be late," she lied.

She heard a grunt from above as the whole car shook.

Jacob thankfully let it drop, "Yea okay. How'd it go?"

"It was fine..."

"Jacob," came Billy's faint voice from the house.

Jacob cursed under his breath.

"Hey, I'll be right back. Can you finish this up?"

Kate rolled out from under the car and nodded at him. He quickly ran out of the garage. She wasn't sure how much time she had but she wasn't going to waste this prime opportunity. After checking that the coast was clear, Kate lifted the part that Jacob was working on. Fiery blue swirled around the part and her hands. The part dismantled itself in the air. Kate inspected the part and found the bolt that Jacob was working on. Waving her other hand, she summoned the replacement part and placed it where the broken one used to be. She gave it one last glance over before having the part put itself together.

"Hey, Kate," she heard Jacob's voice say.

Kate gasped and dropped the part. She partially caught it but not after it smashed her fingers under its weight. She cried out.

"Kate!"

Jacob ran into the garage and he quickly lifted the part up and threw it away to inspect the fingers. If she'd been human her fingers would've been crushed but they only throbbed in pain. Kate tried to pull her fingers from view but Jacob grabbed onto her hand to look at it.

Her breath hitched in her throat. Jacob's hands felt so warm wrapped around hers. Jacob gave her a questioning look but then looked back to her hand.

"They seem fine. What were you doing, Kate?" he asked her.

Kate shook her head to break out of the trance that Jacob had her in.

"Fixing it like you asked. It's done," she stated.

Jacob looked at the part with a small frown on his face, "That was fast. Next time, don't kill your hand."

She gave him a mocking salute with her good hand and made to go back under the car before Jacob stopped her.

"My dad and I are going to dinner at the Clearwater's tonight. He wanted to know if you wanted to come. Seth would be happy to see you," he said with a hint of a strain in his voice by the end.

Kate chuckled, "I wish but I have Bella's birthday party tonight. Seth will just have to wait until next time."

Jacob grumbled quickly to himself before addressing Kate, "Let me guess, the Cullens."

"Bingo."

Jacob sighed and leaned over the Rabbit's engine again. Kate rolled her eyes and went under the car once more. Before she got to work, she looked at Jacob's shoes and wished more than anything that she were staying here to have dinner in La Push. There was this feeling in her gut that something was coming. She didn't know what, but it wasn't good.