Story Title: Ready or Not

Summary: Can two people who don't see eye to eye mend their broken friendship?

Pairing: Jacob/Bella eventually

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.

AN: I know what you're thinking...'She barely updates anymore, why is she starting a new story only to make us wait even longer?' That answer is easy, my usually quiet Bella muse hit me over the head with this idea while I was in the grips of a very painful migraine and once I got some sleep and I felt better more of this chapter fell into place. Please let me know what y'all think.

AN2: I wanted to clear something up before I confuse all of you. There is no La Push High School so, Jacob, Embry, Quil, Jared and Seth and all of their respective others go to Forks. It's not something that I normally do, I know but I wanted to try it out for this story and see it goes.

Bella Swan was in love. Not puppy love, or lust or even infatuation but full on love. The kind of love that the most naive of people think concurs all and can't be shaken. Her boyfriend of a year had broken the news gently that he had been accepted into an honors program at a academy in Tacoma and he felt that it would be beneficial for him to go if he wanted to be accepted in Harvard for their premed program. They still had three months together when he had told her but the summer had flown by and the new school year would begin in less than two weeks for her and in a couple of days for Edward.

Edward's house was full of people but he and Bella had found a place of solitude on the balcony that was off of his room. He leaned against the sliding door and she sat between his legs, resting against him. The air was hot and muggy and and the quiet was too much for Bella, making her feel uneasy.

"Stop," Edward cautioned.

"Stop what?"

"You're fidgeting," he said with a light laugh.

"Sorry, you're so quiet that it's making me nervous."

"You worry too much," he said against her hair.

"You'll call and write, right?" she asked, turning her torso to look at him, worrying her bottom lip.

"Until I meet someone else. She'll be prettier than you of course, super model pretty. And she'll also be want to be a brain surgeon when she's older. And did I mention that she'll be fluent in three languages? She'll be perfect in every way."

"So she'll be Mary Poppins?" she asked, her mouth quirking up on one side.

"I will call you and email you everyday. I'll text so much that you'll grow tired of me. I'll come home when I can. You won't miss me, I swear," he promised.

"I will have Alice and Angela," she reasoned.

"You'll be so busy that you won't have time to miss me."

"We should go back inside before Emmett comes looking for us. We don't want what happened last time to happen again."

"I still haven't let that go," he said with a sigh.

"Too late," Edward's older brother, Emmett said from inside Edward's room.

"At least we weren't in a compromising position this time," Bella said as she stood.

"Thank God," Emmett said with a roll of his eyes.

Edward took hold of Bella's hand to lead her through the house to the living room where his oldest brother, sister and sister-in-law were waiting for them. Carlisle, gave them each a look that only he could give them, one that said 'you should know better'. Edward's sister and sister-in-law weren't asking for much. Alice and Esme just wanted to spend Edward's last night in Forks as a family.

A few hours later Edward and Bella were sitting in his car out front of her house. She still had another fifteen minutes before Charlie would send one of the officers that he worked with to pass by the house to make sure that she was home and that Edward wasn't there. It wasn't like they had gotten around that before but tonight Edward wouldn't be able to stay. He still had some last minute packing to do that he had put off so that Bella could come over. He and Carlisle would be leaving early the next morning to be in Tacoma in time for orientation.

Bella was facing him, watching him as he stared out the windshield. He had gone silent again. She reached to put a hand on his arm and he turned his head to look at her. He smiled, not a genuine smile, the kind that reached his eyes and made her give him whatever he wanted but a smile to reassure her that everything would be fine.

"I love you," she said with a sigh.

"I love you too," he said before leaning in.

His hands cupped her face and her fingers were threaded into his hair as she gave in to the kiss. What started out as a sweet gentle kiss turned into a grope fest with his hands under her shirt and his fingernails scraping over her breasts through her bra. She saw the car lights approaching the house before he did and pulled away. It was a car she would recognize anywhere. One of the deputies slowed down and nodded as Bella pulled away from Edward and exited the car. She leaned down and he rolled the passenger window down so that she could say one last thing.

"Call me when you get settled in?"

"Sure," he said with a genuine smile.

She waved at the deputy before walking up the stairs Edward said something that Bella couldn't hear to the deputy and the deputy nodded before pulling away from the house. Inside, Bella called her dad to let her know that Deputy Lyle was on his way back and that she was going to bed. She set the coffee machine timer because she had to be at work early and Charlie would want coffee when he finally got up for the day before going to bed. She would have to face the fact that Edward was making strides towards the future without her.

XXXX

Two weeks later Bella started her senior year of high school. She had talked to Edward every single day since he left. He had made good on his promise to carve out time every night so that the time of them could talk for at least half an hour. She didn't feel as alone as she thought she would. Alice was waiting for her by the front doors with her boyfriend Jasper. She let herself be pushed along by the throng of people also making their way through the parking lot. Alice noticed her and she waved, smiling brightly.

"Do you have to be so chipper at seven thirty in the morning?"

"Did someone stay up late last night talking to their boyfriend?" Jasper teased.

"So what if I did?" she said in mock defense.

"I'm glad that you got to talk to him. It's the only way I have of keeping up with how he's doing. I've talked to him maybe three times since he left."

"He's got a lot going on. He has three papers due by next week and he's working and he has that club that he joined," Bella explained.

"What club?" Alice asked.

"It's for future scientist and doctors..."

"Stop, I don't need to hear anymore. It sounds boring," Alice said cutting Bella off.

Alice may be Edward's twin by they were nothing alike. Alice was a sociable fashionista who made friends easily while Edward was more comfortable in small crowds and preferred studying over going shopping. The three of them made their way through the halls coming to grips with the fact that not only would Edward not be joining them but Emmett had graduated the previous year and was now settling in at college. Alice was taking being the only Cullen at Forks High better than Bella would have. She had always wanted siblings and when she had met Edwards family she had found the comradery that she had been missing.

Bella left them at Jasper's locker to go find her first class. It was in the new wing that had opened up that year and she wanted to find her class as quickly as possible. She was looking down at the map that had come with her schedule when she collided with someone. Her book bag slid off her shoulder and fell to the floor with a soft thud.

"Watch it!" The person warned before walking around her.

"Sorry," she apologized quickly.

Bella looked over her shoulder as she leaned down to pick up her bag. The voice had belonged to Jared Miller, someone who was almost as short as she was, it was no wonder she hadn't seen him. Jared wasn't a bad guy, he just tended to let his mouth get the best of him because he said whatever was on his mind. He continued down the hall with three of his friends, all three of them toward over him even though he was almost two years older than they were. Quil Ateara, Embry Call and Jacob Black all lived in La Push with Jared and had been going to school in Forks for the past five years since the only school in La Push had burned down and there hadn't been enough money to build a new one.

Bella continued to watch them and before they turned a corner she thought she saw Jacob cast one last look at her. She and Jacob had been friends when they were younger but once she entered middle school their friendship had fizzled out. Her dad, Charlie and his dad, Billy had been best friends since before Bella had been born and it had taken them both a long time to come to terms that Bella and Jacob were no longer speaking. She couldn't even remember what had happened to put a rift between them.

Bella's phone buzzed in her pocket as she found her classroom a few minutes later. She was the first one there and while there was a rule against phones being used during class most teachers tended to look the other way if the students used them before class. She pulled her phone out of her pocket before sitting down once she had found her seat. She would be sitting behind Jessica Stanley, again. She was really cursing her luck that their names fell together in the alphabetical order of things. She and Jessica had been friends before Mike Newton had made his feelings for Bella known and even though she had thwarted his advances Jessica seemed to think that she held a huge flaming torch for him. She slid her finger over her phone to wake it up then went through her texts to find one from her dad.

You were supposed to wake me up so I could give you your birthday present. We'll do something this weekend. Happy Birthday, kiddo.

She smiled as she exited out of the message and saw one from her mom that she had missed while she was in the shower. It was short, direct and to the point explaining that her birthday present would be arriving that day or the next. She hadn't wanted anyone to make a big deal out of her birthday and she was thankful that Alice had listened when told her that she didn't want to do anything or to make a big scene.

The two minute warning bell rang and and the classroom was soon full. Bella put her phone in her bag and smiled at Jessica as she passed back the class syllabus. Jessica smiled back feebly, mouthing 'happy birthday' before turning to face the front of the room again. Maybe there was hope that they could still be friends after all.

XXXX

Charlie was at work when she got home from school but he would only be working a short shift so that they could spend the night of her birthday together. She was trying to figure out what to make for dinner when the phone rang. She reached around the open cabinet door to grab the phone from off the wall.

"Hello?"

"Hey there legal beagle," Billy drawled.

"Hey," she said with a short laugh.

"Happy birthday from me and Jake, sweetheart."

"You don't have to include him every year. We haven't said two words to each other with out you and Charlie forcing us together in years."

"I know, but why break tradition?"

"Are you still coming over tomorrow?"

"I don't know, won't your dad be uncomfortable being the third wheel?"

"He'll just have to get over it," she said with a scoff.

"I'll be there and don't worry about cooking, I'm bringing fish fry."

"You are my knight and shining armor; whatever would I do without you?" she said in a dramatic voice.

"I love ya, kiddo."

"Love you too. See you tomorrow."

She hung up just in time to hear her dad shut the door to his cruiser. She called a greeting over her shoulder as he stood in the foyer taking off his holster and toeing off his boots. He stored his gun in the gun case in the living room before coming into the kitchen.

"Have you taken anything out yet?"

"I can't decide what to cook."

"You want to go to the diner?"

"Sure."

"Happy Birthday Bells," Charlie said coming to stand in front of her.

He pulled her to him and held her tightly. They hadn't always had the best of relationships because he'd had no clue how to raise a preteen or young adult and some of the decisions he made for her baffled her. She hadn't been allowed to do a lot of things that kids her age had been able to do because he was a cop and he worried obsessively about her until she had been able to prove that she could take care of herself. She hadn't been allowed to date until she was sixteen and she and Edward had toed the fine line between friendship and dating for months before he finally found the courage to ask her out.

He had eased up on the rules in the past year and they had found a happy medium in the battle versus parent and child. Renee had tried to raise Bella until she realized that she was failing horribly at it and that Bella was in danger of becoming the parent. Bella had been living with Charlie and spending every summer except this last one with Renee since she was six.

Bella was like Charlie in some ways. They were both rational and fairly easy going, they had trouble holding their emotions in check when something was bother them. Billy said he could tell instantly when something was bothering them. She was surprised that she had held herself together as well as she had after Edward left. Yes, she missed him but she knew that she couldn't hold him back from what he wanted.

XXXX

Jacob searched through his missed calls to find that his dad had left him a voice mail asking him to come home as soon as football practice was over. He already knew what he was going to say. Mr. Baum had more than likely called his dad about the homework that he had missed earlier in the week and the test that he had tanked that morning. It was only a few weeks into the school year and already he was falling behind. He had promised his dad that he wouldn't let playing sports affect his grades or schoolwork like it had last year. He just hoped that Billy didn't make him quit the team.

Jared dropped Jacob off first and he told Quil that it wasn't a good idea for him to come in like he had planned on. Billy was in the living room when Jacob walked through the front door. He tossed his practice and book bags in his room before coming to sit on the couch.

"When we were you planning on telling me that you were falling behind in English?" Billy asked calmly.

"Tonight," Jacob mumbled.

"Jake, we had this talk before football try outs and you promised me that this wouldn't happen. Your teacher says that you don't participate in class and that when you're called on you pretend that you don't hear him until he moves on to someone else. What is so hard about tenth grade english that you are having trouble only three weeks into the year?"

"It's hard for me to follow along with the class. I don't understand a single word of what we're reading."

"What are you reading?"

"Julius Caesar."

"Shakespeare is pretty hard to keep up with. I never understood him either."

"It takes me twice as long to understand what he's trying to say than anyone else."

"I know exactly what I can do to help you," Billy said, slapping his knee.

"You aren't making me quit the team?"

"No, Son. I've got a call to make, you're coming to Charlie's with me."

"Dad, no," Jacob pleaded.

"Yes, Jake. Not only has Bella already read the play she's a Shakespeare expert."

"Can't I ask if there's any extra credit that I can do to make up for being behind?"

"Mr. Baum is giving you a make up test on Friday. Make sure you bring everything you need tomorrow night," Billy said, letting him know that the conversation was over.

Jacob knew that it would be impossible to change his dad's mind. He felt stupid as it was and now his dad was going to force him into spending time with Bella. They had been best friends until she entered middle school and she decided that she wanted friends her age. He had been so hurt by her decision and by the time his mom had died two years later Charlie had stepped up to help them regroup Bella had written him off.

All of the La Push kids were considered outsiders to Bella's group of friends. He was the only sophomore on the varsity football team. The coach had wanted to put him on varsity last year but Billy had been against it since he was so much smaller than the other players at the time. A year later Jacob was nearly a foot taller and more filled out than he had been at the start of last season. A couple of Bella's friends were on the football time but neither of them would give him the time of day since he had been named co-captain over them.

He hated that he needed help and his pride and ego were bruised, but he would go along with what his dad wanted because he wanted to prove to his dad that he could juggle school and football.

They left an hour later, swinging by Harry's to pick up the fish and Seth. Jacob liked Seth, he was a good kid, even if he was a little too chatty for his liking sometimes. Bella liked Seth too, so that was an added bonus. Jacob would make sure that Seth was with them at all times, he was going to need a buffer to get through this night.

Bella's truck wasn't in the driveway when they pulled up so maybe Billy hadn't been able to ask her after all. He could hope, right? Inside, Charlie and Billy talked in the living room while Seth and Jacob worked on their homework at the kitchen table. Bella came in a little while later and Charlie called her into the living room before she could even toe off her shoes.

Jacob tried to listen in but his dad was talking so softly that he couldn't make out what he was saying.

"I don't know, I have a lot going on. I've got college applications to fill out and homework of my own, I'm working part time at Newton's. I barely have time for myself."

"Can't you drop your Saturday shift for a while and help him out?" Charlie questioned.

"I'll pay you to tutor him to make up the difference," Billy promised.

"I can't take your money," she said with a sigh.

"You'll do it?" Billy asked hopefully.

"I'll work around my work schedule," she conceded.

"You're an angel, Kiddo," Billy said with a grateful sigh.

"He'd better take this seriously," she said with a sigh of her own.

Bella stood from the couch and went upstairs to change before going into the kitchen to heat up dinner. She felt Jacob's eyes on her as she pulled the fish and fries from the oven ten minutes later. He had been silent since she got home, this was how things usually went with them and it was going to take time for them to work through it. She had to give him points for bringing Seth along, the kid had a way of breaking the ice like no one she had ever met.

After dinner the kitchen was filled with silence as the three teenagers worked on their homework. Fifteen minutes later Bella was finished and Seth was nowhere near done. His hands were fisted in his hair and he was hunched over his science text book with a pencil firmly between his teeth.

"Need some help Seth?" Bella broached gently.

"Aren't you supposed to be helping Jake?"

"I don't think that he's ready yet. Let me see," she said holding a hand out for his book.

He handed it over and she read the first paragraph to get caught up on what he was working on.

"This is really easy. Photosynthesis is the process of plants absorbing sunlight and they turn that energy into food."

"You made that sound a lot easier than my teacher did," Seth said with a scoff.

"Do you have Miss Gulch?"

"Yes," he said in disdain.

"Do people still call her the Wicked Witch of the West?"

"Oh yeah."

"Let me know if you have anymore trouble," she said handing the book back to him.

Bella went into the living room to grab Charlie and Billy's dirty dishes and started cleaning the kitchen while she waited for Jacob to finish. She had no clue why she agreed to help him. It wasn't like he had made any attempt to mend their friendship but neither had she. People grow apart all the time and she couldn't understand why their dad's had all of the sudden started up their campaign to force the two of them back together once again. She thought that she'd put a stop to it years ago.

She was perfectly happy only having to see Jacob at school and when he came to the house they didn't so much as make eye contact. This situation was so weird and awkward on so many levels it wasn't even funny. All she wanted to do was go up to her room and call Edward so that she could rant about how relentless Charlie was being.

A chair scraped across the linoleum as she was letting the water out of the sink. She placed a towel over the dishes and decided to put them away later. She turned around to see Jacob loading his books into bag.

"Can I have a few minutes before we start?" he asked, finally acknowledging her.

"Yeah," she said, nodding quickly.

Jacob left his English text book and notebook on the table and she picked up his notebook to check to see how far along he was. His handwriting hadn't improved from when they were kids. She could barely read his quick, sloppy handwriting. He came back into the room and folded himself into Charlie's seat with a sigh. Seth worked quietly in between them as Bella continued to look Jacob's notes.

"You're done reading the play?" she asked, not looking up from what she was reading.

"The rest of the class is. I just started the last act," Jacob mumbled.

"How did you manage to fall so behind?"

"Because I don't speak Shakespeare," he answered roughly.

"It's Elizabethan. Yes, it's a dead language but it's not that hard to understand...For most people," she explained.

"Look-" Jacob started.

"Okay, I'm going to finish my homework upstairs. I don't want to get caught up in the action when you two start throwing punches," Seth said, packing his stuff up quickly.

"This was a bad idea," Bella said with a sigh.

"Yeah, no shit," Jacob said gruffly.

"Do I need to hog tie the two of you together?" Charlie asked from the archway of the living room.

"She started it," Jacob said in defense.

"That doesn't mean that you have to keep it going. Bells, can't you look past your differences and help him? Please?" Billy called from the living room.

Bella sighed, dragging her fingers through her hair. How were she supposed to help him when they couldn't go thirty seconds without trading barbs? She could think of so many better ways to spend her night than helping someone who wasn't appreciative of her help.

"The moral of the play is that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer because even the people who you thought that you could trust can betray you. Power can make people do things that they would never consider doing, it can drive a wedge between even the closest of friends. Love can tear two people a part just as easily as it can bring them together."

"Sounds familiar, except for the love part," he said, folding his arms over his chest.

"You are such an asshole. You know what? Find someone else to help you," she said standing up from the table quickly.

She stomped up the stairs and would have slammed her door if Seth weren't at her desk.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked quietly.

"No," she said, throwing herself onto the bed with a grunt.

"Things didn't go well downstairs?" he broached.

"No," she said curtly.

Charlie came up to tell Seth that Billy was ready to leave a little while later and stayed at Bella's door until the front door closed. He came to stand beside Bella's bed and she turned on her side away from him.

"That's really mature," he said sitting on the edge of the bed.

"What made you think that asking me tutor him would be a good idea?"

"You could have tried harder to be nice to him," he chastised.

"I was!" she said in frustration.

"After I threatened you," he reminded her.

"He didn't have to say what he said. And I am not apologizing for walking out on him."

"Do you remember why you two stopped being friends?"

"I started middle school and I didn't have any time for him."

"That's only part of it. You gave that poor kid the freeze for months before he finally stopped trying to get through to you. You flat out ignored him, you told him that he was too immature for you to be friends with. Do you know that when his mom died all he wanted was for you to talk to him? Kids are cruel sometimes, I get that but you were just plain vicious."

After Charlie's rant all of her repressed memories from that time in her life came flooding back. It wasn't a time in her life that she liked to think about because Renee was fighting Charlie for custody of her and it was putting a lot of added stress on her and she had come to the realization that middle school was nothing like she had thought it would be. Most of her friends were going to the new middle school on the other side of town and she spent most weekends with them. Jacob had been the closest thing she had to a sibling and they had been best friends pretty much since he had been born. She felt awful. Somehow she had to make it up to him.

XXXX

Bella had found out from one of her sophomore friends that Jacob was in their last class of the day so she made an excuse to get out early from the last class and hauled ass across the school before the bell rang. She leaned against the lockers across from his class and tried to calm her nerves and get her breathing back to normal. The bell rang and the door opened, Jacob was one of the first out of the room and his eyes narrowed when he saw Bella.

"I want to apologize," she explained.

"Why? It's not like you've cared before," he said in indifference with a lazy shrug.

"What I did was wrong and I never should let my other friends come before you."

"What do you care? I'm a Asshole," he said, before turning to walk away from her.

She hadn't realized that they had an audience. Embry and Quil stood a few feet away Quil stared after Jacob while Embry gave Bella a cursory once over. She pulled her book bag from her shoulder and unzipped it to reach inside. She pulled out a tupperware container and walked up to Quil.

"Can you give this to Jake?"

"What is it?" Quil asked opening the lid.

"White chocolate macadamia cookies are still his favorite, aren't they?"

"I'll take that," Embry said, snatching the container from Quil and sealing the lid.

Bella turned her eyes to Embry who was putting the container in his bag.

"You should never give him food that is meant for someone else," he explained.

"Do either of you know if Jake found someone to help him with?"

"Yeah," Embry confirmed with a nod and his lips in a firm line.

She nodded, deciding that it would be best to let it go. She slung her bag back onto her shoulder before walking away. The ball was in Jacob's court now; she just hoped that he forgave her.