Magic At Her Fingertips by Meowser Hotchner

A/N: So, first up, Katie isn't mine. Neither is Ned (but y'all probably know Ned from GW). Katie is a wonderful creation of GhostWhispererFangirl, and she appears in said author's story Their Little Family.

A few basic notes for the premise of Their Little Family are:

Jimel had kids earlier than they did in the show. There isn't an Aiden.

There's Katie, Aaron, Mackenzie, Lana and Emma. They're all quirky and cute and very true to w8hat Jimel's kids would be like if they'd had more than Aiden. (And if Connor Gibbs could act to save his precious little life.)

And Melinda took Jim's name. They're Jim and Melinda Clancy, not Jim Clancy and Melinda Gordon.

So in Their Little Family Katie and Ned eventually get together. GhostWhispererFangirl even made a beautiful spinoff, Lookin' in a Mirror, which showcases, among other things, Ked's early married life. (She and I loved the pairing so much we had to give it our own ship name.)

Anyway, she asked, I dared.

In this story, I'm going to tackle Ked.

GhostWhispererFangirl always tries to give ages at the start of her chapters.

Katie is about 18 in this one. Ned would be 22.

What Katie knew was that she'd loved Ned Banks for her entire life.

What Katie knew, down to the tips of her fingers, was that Ned would never see her as more than a sister.

She leaned against the counter of Same As It Never Was, her hair in her face; she'd put it up this morning, styled it a little extra, but the heat of the day had melted it completely. The a/c was broken.

Wasn't it always broken?

She pulled her cotton shirt away from her chest, where it had most definitely begun to stick. Delia had a real estate closing today, and Katie was alone in the shop; Melinda had a doctor's appointment to make sure that her pregnancy was progressing as it should.

Katie hoped it was. She knew a little about her parents' pregnancy struggles before she herself had come along and she knew that, though appearances might deceive most people, Melinda and Jim were still cautious about pregnancies. Jim babied Melinda as much as she'd let him. Melinda even took it easy on the ghost side of things, something made easier when she had Katie to call on, which she most decidedly did.

If there were people in her life that Katie loved more than Ned Banks, they were her parents, Jim and Melinda Clancy. And her siblings, Aaron and Mackenzie.

And the newest one that Melinda was still expecting. Katie couldn't wait to meet her newest sibling, that was certain. But Melinda still had about five and a half months to go.

Katie had become a pregnancy expert this time around, actually reading up on what could go wrong (her mother wasn't as young as she could be) and what signs were good; and which were bad.

She knew that it vaguely irked Melinda that Katie had taken on Jim's protective side, but she also knew that her mother quietly loved the amount of care she was getting throughout this pregnancy, even when it edged into the ridiculous, as it had last night when Jim carried her upstairs after Melinda complained of a stubbed toe.

It really wasn't a big deal. There wasn't even a mark, but Katie grinned to remember her father's theatrics as he carried Melinda up the stairs, and the sounds that later came from her parents' room; they were always too loud. Even when they tried to be quiet, as they had last night.

Katie walked into the back of the shop, and checked the thermostat. Yep, it was edging up into the eighties.

Damn it. It was time to give up and call for help. She knew that her father was working; Aaron had driven Melinda to her appointment. But maybe, just maybe, her father had a break.

And he was so good with Melinda's cranky a/c.

Katie picked up her phone, waving her hand in front of her face in a vain attempt to cool herself off.

Hey, do you have a break coming up?

At four, why, Katie bug?

The a/c is broken here again and I'm melting.

I don't think I have time for that.

Dad! I'm dying here!

I'll send my assistant.

What? Who's your assistant?

A/c repairmen don't reveal their secrets. He should be there soon.

Katie wracked her brain, going through her dad's list of friends and coming up empty. He mostly knew other doctors and nurses at Mercy Hospital, and none of them had any technical talents.

God. It was too hot. That was all there was to it.

She walked into the front of the shop, and reached underneath the counter. Her mother always had spare clothes here, in case something spilled or got dirty or an outfit that was just too cute to put up for display yet, but didn't fit Melinda so she couldn't keep it unless she got it tailored. Things in the third group usually took a week for Melinda to decide whether she was keeping them and spending the money to get them tailored, or just selling them anyway.

Katie hit gold, pulling out a silky and very summer appropriate sundress, that looked way better in her mind than her current outfit of jeans and a cotton sleeveless blouse.

The shop was empty. No one was out when it was this hot even inside.

She ducked into the back, not bothering to lock the front door of the shop, and tugged her jeans off.

The wind chimes sounded to signal a customer. "Just a second!" She called, unbuttoning her shirt and shoving towards the jeans. She was just pulling the dress over her head when she got a bit stuck—it had looked loose enough to get it on with unzipping it but now she was reconsidering that assumption—when she heard a throat clearing.

A male throat.

And she was standing there, in her underwear, in the middle of changing her clothes.

She gave a gigantic tug, resigning herself to her fate, and the dress came down, falling in graceful folds down her body.

"Hey, Katie. Your dad sent me over."

Her cheeks were already red. Upon the realization that it was Ned, Katie felt like she was about to have a heart attack. No! Just no. There should be some sort of universal ban against one's crush seeing oneself in an embarrassing situation.

She couldn't even speak for a few too long moments. Ned was looking anywhere but her, and yet she noticed something else: even as he avoided looking at her, there seemed to be some sort of pull: every few seconds his eyes darted back to stare at her before jerking away.

Weird.

"Sorry, I thought you were a customer and wouldn't...come in the back," Katie began. "It's so hot here. My clothes were, like, glued to my skin. It was horrible."

"I should have called or something," Ned apologized. "I just barged into the back. And you were obviously saying that I should wait..."

She cleared her throat. "Well, whatever, we've known each other so long...this is no big deal. God, you probably saw me naked when I was a baby."

Ned's cheeks grew gradually redder, and the flush spread.

She hadn't known that Ned Banks, boytoy extraordinaire at this point, could even have it in his now completely worldly soul to blush.

But blushing he was. Because he'd seen her in her underwear.

"I mean, you've got to have seen me in my swim suit too!" Katie rambled. "I've worn bikinis before."

"Yeah, there were beach trips," Ned said, now really not looking at her at all. "Okay. So your dad sent me over to look at the a/c."

"Right," Katie said, wanting to kill herself for continuing on such an awkward and humiliating topic. "Um. It's over here. Um, Ned?"

"Yeah?" He asked, hoisting a toolbox she hadn't noticed before. His arms rippled with muscles; had he ever looked quite so built before now?

"You know how to fix...things like this?" She asked, losing all sense of words as she watched him take off his long sleeved cotton shirt.

"It's crazy hot in here, you're right," he said. "I had a short fling as an electrician's assistant. And this isn't wiring, I don't think." He propped his hands on his hips, looking at the thermostat. "You know, I actually have no idea why your dad thought I'd be a good pick." Looking totally perplexed, he pressed a button on the thermostat. Nothing happened.

"Okay, maybe I should take off the covering," Ned said. "Figure out what's going on underneath all of this."

"Seems like he's already done that."

Katie jumped almost a foot in the air, turning to see a translucent woman folding her arms.

"Whoa!" She said.

Ned jerked around. "What?"

"Ghost, sorry I overreacted," Katie said immediately. "I should be more used to it by now but somethings you never get used to."

"Oh, well, go ahead and talk to...them," Ned said. "I won't blow anything up, at any rate. Same As It Never Was is safe in my hands."

"I'll go out front with her," Katie agreed, noticed that her pile of clothes was still too obvious and, blushing again, leaned down to pick them up.

She had the distinct, strange feeling of someone watching her. The ghost was in front of her, so that wasn't it...she could have sworn there were eyes glued to her ass.

She jerked upright, turning to stare at Ned, who quickly turned back to the thermostat.

Good god, had Ned Banks been checking her out? After all these years of longing and unrequited feelings and ohmygod, he totally had been.

Then again, she'd been practically naked in front of him just a minute or two before so maybe it was just a guy thing.

She deflated again, shoved the clothes under the counter and walked outside with the ghost.

Once Katie had gone out front, Ned sagged against the wall. This was not something he'd anticipated at all. Jim had simply texted him to ask if Ned could find time to go check on the a/c at Melinda's shop. Ned had said yes, he'd grabbed his tools and hurried over, expecting to find Melinda waiting inside.

Instead he found Katie. A very hot...no pun intended...Katie, in the middle of changing her clothes. He'd been given such a short glimpse of her body, (was she right? Had he ever seen her in a bikini? Surely he'd have held on to that memory more tightly) which was so much like her mom's, but more toned by the virtue of the fact that she was so much taller than Melinda.

Curves. A light pink bra. Whisper defined abs that went down...to hips. Curvy hips. Light blue panties that definitely didn't match her bra.

He inhaled a little sharply at the memory, feeling a bit dizzy. He'd never before thought of Katie like this, as a girl, as a woman, as someone damned desirable...she was always just his sister...ish. They'd been close. He was older, they'd gotten...less close.

She'd hit a growth spurt, all gangly legs and stick thin all over, at about 11. Ned being fifteen, she'd been about the last thing on his radar girl wise.

And then she'd hit thirteen. All of a sudden she had hips; a booty that Ned didn't like to think about other guys thinking about. Her breasts were probably the last to come in. It seemed like overnight (well, he was in college at the time so it was probably just that he left and she was flat chested and came back for a break a while later and...) she'd grown a pair. Or, like, three cup sizes.

He hated that he knew this about her, that he remembered it so keenly. That as much as he'd tried to convince himself that Katie was like a kid sister, from probably the age fourteen onward, she hadn't been that to him.

No, she'd been...special. Alluring, but not in the way he was attracted to other girls. There was never incendiary lust or the urge to just make out with her. Okay, scratch that, there was.

But they'd been accompanied by...more. By trust and her faith in him. By wanting to always be a paragon in her eyes; to never disappoint her. By a faint, whisper thin dream of Katie as his...companion, as life passed them by. Of always being something to her, the one she went to.

But that would never be.

She was his...friend. She was too close to him. They'd known each other too long. Yeah, she had a crush on him, but Ned knew better than to take advantage of that. In the first place, Jim would kill him. Then Melinda would, followed closely by his mother. And himself.

He'd want to die if he ever hurt Katie, really hurt her. If he let himself reach out to her and just pull her in, finally, after years of wishing. Hell, until recently it would have been statutory rape if they'd...done anything.

She's eighteen now. She's an adult. She can do what she wants.

The words whispered in his ear. He moved from the thermostat to look out into the front, to where Katie was standing on the sidewalk in an almost see through sundress that was already clinging to her skin.

He swallowed.

He'd love to as close to her as that dress was right now.

He turned back to the wall, hit a switch. The a/c came on in a quiet rush of air, immediately cooling the shop.

Ned tugged at his shirt collar as Katie walked back into the store accompanied by a customer.

The a/c hadn't been working long enough for her to notice, so he got to watch her as she helped the middle aged man, sorting through items until she found the perfect gift for his niece.

He loved watching her work. He loved watching Katie when she was in the zone, when she knew what she was doing and did it effortlessly. There was this look on her face; it only appeared in her mother's shop...and when she was writing.

He'd seen her parked under a tree at Melinda and Jim's house so many times now; he'd come over and she'd be sitting in the shade, furiously scribbling thoughts in a notebook that always got replaced at an insanely fast pace; they never lasted long, she always filled them up so fast.

As the customer departed, Katie turned around.

"Wait, I just realized...you fixed the a/c!" Startling him, she ran forward, thrusting herself underneath the air vent and tugging at the neckline of her sundress. "Thank you, god! Or whoever invented a/cs!" She turned to face Ned, a shy smile on her face. "And you. I guess you knew what you were doing after all."

"I guess," he said nervously, bending to pick up his screwdriver, and screwing the paneling back over the thermostat.

"Thanks," she said, as he packed up to go.

"You're welcome," he said brightly.

Her eyes were on him, watching him. "Are you coming for my going away dinner?" She asked. "It's soon. I haven't heard yet."

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, imagining that they were younger; that this conversation was easy to have. "Of course," he said. "My mom would kill me if I wasn't there."

He saw the disappointment in her eyes, that that was his reason for going.

Well, hell, what did she want? For him to confess that the reason he went was because she made him feel...insane? Head over heels in love with a girl that he'd never let himself touch?

Because that was pretty much his definition of insane at this point.

"I have to get going," he muttered, and hurried from the shop into the glaring sun.

A/N: Leaving it open ended for now. :)