"Heard you guys coming all the way down the road," Charlie joked as Jacob helped Billy out the truck, Kiara simply letting out a half smile as she leaned against the rusted orange metal. Was she a little annoyed that the truck originally meant for her was being sold to the Chief for his daughter that her and Jacob used to play with? A little.

But after all, she had turned down the offer of a perfectly working car from Sam Uley and his lackeys so she assumed that this was just karma at this point. She didn't blame her father for no longer thinking she wanted a car, but she couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed after standing in the pouring rain before Rosalie gave her a lift home the prior afternoon. Of course, she hadn't told Jacob or Billy that it was one of the Cullen's who gave her a lift from school to Charlie's house, and the Chief had promised not to mention it to Billy as long as Kiara made sure that Bella had a good first day at school.

"Good to see you," Billy told his old friend as the group all turned as Bella Swan exited the Swan household. Kiara wasn't sure what she had expected the brunette girl to look like since she barely remembered playing with her when they were younger, but she looked just like Charlie if he was younger - and a girl. Kiara smiled softly, but it was obvious to anyone looking that she wasn't hugely fussed about the whole exchange. Kiara noted that Bella also did not seem particularly thrilled to be meeting her dad's old friend and his twins.

"Bella, you remember Billy Black?" Charlie checked, unsure on whether or not she actually would remember him since she hadn't remembered much else about Forks. Bella, however, plastered a smile across her face as she shook Kiara's father's hands, looking at him in admiration.

"Yeah, of course. Wow, you're looking good!"

"Well I'm still dancing," Billy replied before casting a playful side-eye to his best friend. "I'm glad you're finally here. Charlie here hasn't shut up about it since you told him you were coming."

Charlie rolled his eyes as he moved away from the truck, Billy following him closely behind. Kiara smiled lightly at their banter, a genuine one this time.

"Alright, alright. Keep exaggerating and I'll roll you into the mud."

"Right after I ram your ankles."

Bella, Jacob and Kiara all smiled as they watched their dads pretend to fight each other on the street. Billy was wheeling back and forth quicker than Kiara had seen him do in a long time and even if her relationship with her father had been very strained since her sisters moved out, it was nice to see him having some fun again. She had often avoided being around the men when they got together, instead using the time that her father was preoccupied to go to parties and raves off the reservation.

"Hi, I'm Jacob," Jacob said to Bella, his long hair longer than Kiara's at this point. She kept insisting that he cut it, but she knew that it was tradition in La Push for the boys to keep their hair long - well, unless you joined the Uley cult and suddenly cut it all off. She noticed her brother flush a little as he spoke to Bella, Kiara tilting her head in disbelief. "We, uh, we used to make mudpies together when we were little."

"Right, no, I remember," Bella told Jacob with a smile although Kiara wasn't completely convinced that she actually did remember that. Bella turned to look at their dads again before looking at Kiara who was still yet to say a word. "Are they always like this?"

"It's getting worse with old age," Jacob answered instead, knowing that Kiara didn't spend enough time with them to know whether this was the norm of not. His twin shot him a small glare, not appreciating Jacob answering for her - and because she still was annoyed at him getting detention and leaving her stranded in the Forks torrential rain yesterday.

"So what do you think of your homecoming present?" Charlie asked Bella as he patted the truck, watching as Bella's eyes widened in sudden confusion and disbelief.

"This?"

"Just bought it off Billy here."

Kiara smiled a little at how excited Bella suddenly seemed, rushing around the truck as she took it all in. Her anger at her father for selling it suddenly faded a little as she saw how grateful Bella was for the piece of scrap metal that Jacob had spent ages rebuilding, and she knew that she would never have reacted the same way.

"I totally rebuilt the engine for you," Jacob bragged, causing Kiara to shoot Charlie and Billy a look as the men both sniggered knowing that it was obvious Jake had a crush on the Swan girl already. Kiara knew that he didn't rebuild the engine for her as it had been down with herself in mind, but she decided to keep that to herself. For now.

"Oh my gosh, this is perfect! Are you joking me?" Bella asked as she swung the door open and smacked Jacob, causing Kiara to snigger from behind her as she felt that karma had been served instantly for Jacob lying about how the car was being remodelled. "Sorry!"

Kiara walked to the driver seat window as Jacob and Bella jumped into the cab of the truck, the girl looking over the moon to get to play around with her new toy. Kiara was going to refer to it as a metal death trap on wheels, but she knew that none of the others would appreciate the comment. Since she was trying to prove to them all that she was a changed person - albeit if she actually had changed or not - she decided to bite her tongue instead.

"So you've got to double pump the clutch when you shift but besides that you should be good," Jacob explained as Bella grinned from ear to ear.

Bella looked between Jacob and Kiara with a smile as she motioned to the car that herself and Jacob were sitting in. She was excited to at least know two people that she would be going to school with, thankful that she wouldn't be sitting by herself in the school toilets in fear of entering the cafeteria as the new kid.

"Do you want a ride to school or something?"

"I go to school on the reservation," Jacob told her instantly, not even leaving any time for Kiara to hop on the opportunity. Since Jacob had spent most of his time in detention or fixing Bella's truck, he hadn't gotten round to sorting out the stuck chain on her bicycle yet and she had no intention of walking.

"Right, right, that's too bad. It would have been nice to know one person," Bella said, instantly assuming that the twins would just got to the same school. Kiara looked up at that, finally opening her mouth for the first time in ages.

"I actually got to Forks High," she admitted with a shrug. "So I'd love a ride, if you're offering?"

Their ride to school was rather... awkward to say the least. Kiara had realised halfway through that she hadn't even introduced herself, although Bella promised that she knew who she was. Kiara still doubted that even though the brunette seemed pretty adamant.

Once they pulled up, Kiara showed Bella to the school office and after the arrival of Eric decided that it was best that she left them to it. Kiara told Eric to make sure that Bella got to lunch in one piece before heading off to her own classes, since it wasn't like she had been assigned any of the same as Bella.

She was just glad that all eyes would be off of her now that she was no longer the new girl... right?

_____

"Hey," Kiara said casually as she swung her backpack off her shoulders, sitting down at the lunch table beside her friends and a startled looking Bella. It didn't take a genius to know that she was obviously overwhelmed with the group of teenagers whom she had only known for a few hours.

"Oh, Kiara, hey," Bella breathed out in relief, the rest of them looking between the two girls in surprise - apart from Eric who had already made the connection that they knew each other from when he bumped into them that morning.

"You guys like, know each other?" Jessica asked, raising an eyebrow as she stabbed her fork into her lunch. She could tell instantly that Jessica was already bored of the attention being on the new girl, and she almost wondered if this was what she had thought when Kiara had started too. Kiara shrugged a little as she motioned to Bella, not sure what the big deal here was.

"Yeah, our dads are friends."

"Cute," Jessica said, and Kiara almost snorted at how her tone made it very clear that she did not find it cute and that she also did not actually care about their dads being friends with each other. She turned back to Angela, continuing with the conversation that they must have been having before Kiara arrived at the table. "Anyway, what are you thinking for the feature?"

"I guess we'll just go with another editorial on teen drinking," Angela said, noticing how Kiara shifted as her eyes fell on her. It was no secret that the Black twin was known for partying hard with Paul Lahote and Jared Cameron, but that had all changed after they had become friends with Sam and she had been expelled from school.

She hadn't expected her reputation to have found its way to Forks High but it wasn't surprising - Jessica's older brother used to be friends with Paul and therefore had ran into her a couple of times when she had been friends with Paul and Jared, and it was no secret that Jessica nor her brother were good at keeping their mouths shut.

"You could always go with eating disorders. Or speedo-padding on the swim team," Bella suggested, trying to clear whatever tension she could sense forming. Her eyes shifted to Kiara for a moment, noticing how the girl had gone a little more quiet than previously.

"Wait that's actually a good one..."

Both Bella and Kiara seemed to zone out as they noticed the doors to the cafeteria open, the one and only Cullen family gliding effortlessly into the cafeteria like they did every overcast or rainy day. Kiara watched as Bella suddenly seemed utterly entranced by them, wondering if that was what she was like when she had first seem them not that long ago. A subtle nod from Angela informed her that she had done the exact same thing, causing a little blush to form up her neck as she realised how strange it looked from the outside perspective.

"Who are they?"

"The Cullens," Angela told Bella, a small smile on her face as she looked at the family.

"They're um, Dr and Mrs Cullen's foster kids," Jessica said with a lighter than normal tone, her voice soft as she fawned over the family. Kiara rolled her eyes a little but she didn't blame the other girl for being entranced, there was something about them that just made it hard to look away. "They moved down here from Alaska like, a few years ago."

"They kind of keep to themselves," Kiara pitched in, eating a piece of her apple as she flickered her gaze back to the table as she waited for the rest of the family to turn up. She wouldn't really admit it, but her eyes were waiting for that familiar blonde to appear.

"Unless you're Kiara," Jessica half-joked, half-snarked back, causing Bella to look at the Quiluete girl in surprise. Kiara simply rolled her eyes at Jessica, before letting the girl continue with her introduction of the family to Bella. "They're all like... together."

Kiara watched as Emmett and Beverly walked in first, holding hands and laughing at something that one of them had said. She smiled a little as she watched them, knowing that despite others thinking it was weird - they were kinda cute together. It was so obvious that her and Rosalie were related, and if Kiara didn't know better she would have thought that Beverly and Rosalie were twins and not Rosalie and Jasper.

"That blonde girl, that's Beverly, and the big dark-haired guy is Emmett. They're like a thing and I'm not even sure that's actually legal."

"Jess, they're not actually like related," Angela pointed out, with Jessica rolling her eyes and continuing her introductions.

"Yeah but they live together, it's weird," she continued before Alice and Jasper entered the room. Kiara smiled as Alice walked by, the girl giving her a smile back which caused Bella and the others to look at Kiara in surprise at the fact she had just been acknowledged by another Cullen. "The little dark-haired girl is Alice, she's really weird. And she's with Jasper, the blonde one who looks like he's in pain. Dr Cullen is like this foster dad / matchmaker."

Kiara looked over as Edward and Rosalie entered the room, Rosalie walking paces in front of her brother as if they didn't even know each other. Kiara smiled as she went by, admiring how effortlessly good she always looked.

"That one is Rosalie Cullen. She's like single - we think - but she has never spoke to any of us, cause we're obviously like not worth her time. Minus Kiara, who seems to be the exception."

"We're chemistry partners," Kiara interrupted to Bella, not wanting her to get the wrong idea from what Jessica was saying. "So she kind of has to talk to me. I don't think she hates everyone else, I think she just prefers to keep to herself."

Of course Kiara could have mentioned that Rosalie had given her a lift home the previously day, but it almost seemed like forbidden information that shouldn't be shared with anyone else. Besides, the last thing she needed was gossip spreading that would get back to La Push and let her dad know that she had been talking to a Cullen. At the rate that Jessica and her older brother shared information, she was sure it would have reached the reservation by the end of the school day.

"Who is he?"

"That's Edward Cullen," Jessica swanned as the boy walked by, Kiara smirking a little at how excited she was getting by him. "He's totally gorgeous, obviously but apparently nobody here's good enough for him. Like I care, you know? So yeah, seriously, like don't waste your time."

"I wasn't planning on it," Bella informed them all, although Kiara could see from the look on her face that she was very intrigued and likely would waste her time if given any opportunity.

They all returned back to eating their lunch when the boys returned to the table, Mike's eyes wide as he looked at Kiara as if he had just seen a deer get struck by a car. She continued to eat her salad before his gaze became too hard to ignore, looking up as she dropped the plastic fork with a sigh.

"Spit it out, Mike," Kiara snapped, her annoyance pulsing from her body. In the corner of her eye, she could see some of the Cullen's turn slightly in their direction but she ignored it, assuming they were just looking over at the salad bar and deciding what to get for their lunch. Her eyes flickered over to where they met Edward's, the boy staring at her with such an intensity that she blinked a few times before turning back to the conversation at hand.

"Okay so I have this cousin who has this friend who has a boyfriend who lives on the reservation," Mike started, the rest of their group tuning into the conversation that they knew was about to be juicer than expected for a Tuesday afternoon. Kiara almost smacked her head against the dining table in frustration, knowing that whatever he said was about to annoy her.

"And?" Kiara questioned, feeling unease in her stomach.

"I mean no disrespect here girl," Mike started, and despite his words, Kiara was already beginning to feel some form of disrespect about to fall from his mouth. "But did you fuck Paul Lahote?"

There was a moment of silence where Kiara was sure that you could have heard a pin drop at their table. Even those who barely tuned into their conversation but sat at the end of the table turned to look, amazed at what the basketball star had just said. Even though the rest of the dinning hall was continuing with their normal conversations, completely unaware of what he had just said, Kiara couldn't help but flush a little out of embarrassment.

"I mean, I'd maybe word it more... eloquently," she muttered after a moment, noticing how eyebrows shot up across the table at her lack of denial. "But to answer your obviously inappropriate question: yes, me and Paul have... yanno... before. It's not a big thing though, and we aren't even friends anymore."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jessica exclaimed as she gasped in excitement, loving nothing more than fresh gossip. "You and Paul Lahote were like... a thing? I feel like it goes against girl code that you have never mentioned this! THE Paul Lahote?"

Kiara shot Mike a deep glare that he shrivelled at a little, realising that he had dropped her in hot water by revealing facts from her past life. She turned back to Jessica with a small shrug, knowing that if she just answered their questions this would end quicker. Even Bella looked interested in the conversation despite not knowing who Paul was.

"It was more of a drunken thing," Kiara muttered, picking at the lettuce in her salad before looking up and noticing how Rosalie seemed to be looking over at their table. Her stomach twisted a little, and she prayed that it was just a coincidence that she was looking over. There was no way she would have been able to hear their conversation from across the hall - and Kiara didn't want people to think less of her after finding out she had had previous drunken hookups.

It wasn't a big deal for her or her old friend group but the Forks High students seemed a lot more pretentious than she originally had believed.

"Besides, like I said," Kiara repeated, her voice a little firmer. "We don't speak anymore, since he like... joined a cult or whatever."

There was an awkward silence as everyone thought back to the conversation of Sam Uley trying to buy her a car, the harsh reality of why she was no longer friends with her old friends in La Push making everyone shut their mouths and swiftly change the topic of conversation. Kiara was glad the attention was off her, but she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her.

If she'd looked over at the Cullen's table again, she would have seen how Beverly was trying to calm a significantly angry Rosalie down.

______

"You left these in Edward's car yesterday," Rosalie told her as soon as she sat down beside her in class that afternoon. Kiara almost groaned at the state of the notes in her hands, taking them from the Hale with a small thanks as she raised them in the air to try and see any part of the papers that weren't smudged from the rain.

"Great," Kiara muttered, turning to look at Rosalie with a playful scowl. "Did you bring me these to torment me?"

Rosalie rolled her eyes at that, before reaching into her own bag and pulling out another stack of freshly printed paper. Kiara watched as she pushed them towards the Quileute girl, a small smirk on her face as she smugly leaned back in her chair and watched as Kiara flicked through the pages.

"A brand new copy of notes, crafted from the spares you gave me and the additions I made," Rosalie told her. Kiara felt a little overwhelmed with gratitude as she looked up in surprise at Rosalie, not really sure what to say to her. She'd never really had anyone do anything as thoughtful for her and while she was sure it was a small inconvenience to the blonde, it meant a lot more than she could ever explain.

"I owe you one," Kiara said before she continued to flick through the papers in silence. Rosalie felt quite proud at herself for making Kiara seem much more relaxed than she had been at lunch, trying not to remember the anger that she had felt hours prior.

She wasn't angry at Kiara having slept with one of the wolves (she hadn't known who Paul was but the fact he was suddenly in what she described to be a cult made it pretty obvious to her that he was a part of the pack), but rather she was annoyed at Kiara's so called friends telling everyone during lunch as if it was public information. Jasper had told them how he could feel her embarrassment and annoyance from where he was sitting - noting once more that she was angry.

That was a common theme with the girl that Jasper had found. Kiara was rather short tempered and while he didn't intend to use his powers on her it was something that he had brought up to Carlisle in front of Rosalie. They knew that the Quileute's often ran a little hot-headed and they also were aware that she was related to them somewhere down the line so instantly Jasper was worried that she was potentially going to become one of them.

However, Carlisle had insured them that they had learnt in their previous stays in Forks that females weren't able to become wolves and therefore they had no reason to worry about Kiara potentially becoming a member of the pack and having to see them at school every day.

"Do you have study hall next?"

Rosalie looked over at Kiara in surprise, knowing what she was suggesting. They'd never really interacted outside of class minus the lift the day prior, and while Rosalie usually would have made all effort to avoid spending time with anyone outside of her family, she couldn't help but find herself nodding with a small smile.

"Yeah, I do. Are you wanting to go over the notes together?"

Kiara smiled at Rosalie, nodding shyly in agreement. Rosalie smiled back in a silent acceptance of the suggestion and both girls looked at each other for a moment before turning back to the work that was written on the blackboard. Rosalie almost rolled her eyes at Edward and Beverly sniggering under their breath at how flustered she had gotten for a moment but it didn't matter to her.

She was starting to think of Kiara Black as more than just the human lab partner.

_____