Bada Bing Bada Boom

(Very Important) A/N: Ok, so this is still not the end. The only reason I'm updating a second part out of three is 'cause it was taking me so long to get the fic done, I felt sorry for the readers. So I'm sorry it's not the end yet but hopefully it'll be a good chapter.

Chapter 11: But Friday Never Hesitates… (Part II)

When I left my bedroom the next morning – after half an hour of dressing up just to make sure I looked ok – it was already past ten and the sun was shinning brighter than ever; hard to believe just a few hours ago it had been raining cats and dogs in La Push.

"Morning." Said the other bipolar thing in Washington that summer.

"Morning!" I answered already feeling cheerier than a second before. Rachel handed me a coffee mug and walked to the couch, her eyes didn't even seem to be open, I wondered if she was sleepwalking.

"Rach, are you awake?" I asked hesitantly. She turned the TV on and reeled backwards like a zombie to the couch, her own coffee mug unsteady in her hands. She sat again, her nose pointing to the ceiling, eyes still closed. Somehow, she had managed to wake up, change her clothes (she was now wearing a stripped "I'm a Goonie" tee) and make us coffee. I tried again. "Rach?"

"Shh!" She said really loud, making my heart jump. "Don't talk to me right now. Becky always says I can get really bitchy before I have my morning coffee."

"Nonsense." I rolled my eyes, sitting by the kitchen counter. "I've seen you after your morning coffee already and there's no way you can get much bitchier than that." I counted exactly three seconds of silence.

"What?" Rachel turned around, still on her sitting position just to face me with a scary frown and I could hear the fabric of my couch being ripped by her nails.

You know, all in all, bravery is really overrated.

"What?" I asked pretending confusion, as if I hadn't said anything.

"You just said something." She accused me. "I heard you say something."

"Hm, you know what? Maybe you're right, Rach, you better drink this coffee soon, you're hearing things already. I haven't said a word." She stared at me, skeptically, for a few seconds.

"Oh well," she shrugged, turning to face the TV.

We were both quiet for some time, sipping from our mugs and the only sounds in the room were the songs playing on MTV Hits. When the coffee was cold enough, Rachel turned her drink at once on her mouth. She then turned around and smiled at me as if seeing me for the first time:

"Oh, Pauline! You're awake already?" She said suddenly very awake. "Now, now; I could swear I hadn't slept in those shorts!" She realized, looking down at her body. "Figures." She said pouting her lips, she then stood up and walked to the fridge. She started browsing cheerfully for food, a complete different person than the one she had been just a few seconds ago. She finally noticed the look on my face:

"Are you alright, Pauline? You look a little bewildered."

It's you, scary person!

"Hm, uh, it's nothing." I decided it was better not to go against the beast. She just watched me, one eyebrow raised:

"You're so weird, Pauline." She said shaking her head and facing the fridge again. Filthy hypocrite, I thought.

"Yeah, I'm a coo-coo. Now, Rach…" I took a deep breath, preparing myself. "Don't you think we should talk about what happened last night?" Rachel kept looking for food.

"What about last night?" She asked half-heartedly.

"You know; that thing that happened…" I tried. She closed the fridge door at once, holding a yogurt bottle. Her eyes widened in realization:

"Oh. That." She opened the yogurt bottle and came to stand next to me. "Don't worry about that, ok? Cracking your head open over it won't help you in anything. I mean, it's love, alright? Nobody does anything smart when they're moved by love. It was just what it was; an impulsive act of love!"

"Love?" I asked, incredulous, my heart stuck in my throat. "An impulsive act…of love?" I just couldn't believe it; love, she had said, freaking love.

"Love, sure." She placed her hand on top of mine. "If your parents didn't love you, why would they call you like that, in the middle of the night? She smiled again and turned the yogurt down her throat pretty much the same way she had done with her coffee earlier.

I took my hand from under hers.

"Are you for real?" She looked down at me again as if trying to understand why I was having such a bad reaction.

"Of course I'm for real, Paulie." She smiled. "You see, in college I had some psychology classes and this is actually a very common hab…"

"WHAT – THE HELL?" I shouted. "Why would you think I was talking about my parents?"

She stared at me blankly as 'till her expression became suspicious:

"Is that a rhetorical question?" She asked, I could feel one of my eyes twitching.

"You're kidding me; you can only be kidding me!" I started looking everywhere for a paper bag, just in case. Even if I didn't hyperventilate, I could still use it stick my head into it and try to suffocate but she finally seemed to realize the reason to all my despair:

"Oh!" She exclaimed. "You mean the other thing that happened last night!" My whole body froze in anticipation as I expected her to finally come to her senses and seriously discuss the events of the night before.

"Oh, Pauline, don't be such a girl about it!" She waved me off with a giggle. "That was just some innocent smooching!" Of course, however, I should've known she'd find a way to mess things up.

"S-smooching?" I whispered dangerously, the words coming out of my mouth as a low, snake-like whistle. "Smooching?"

Rachel's eyes were wide open, not in fear but in total surprise like she was honestly shocked I had been so offended:

"Snoopy and Lucy Van Pelt smooched, Rachel, what we did was nothing, I repeat, nothing like smooching!" I didn't even let her say anything. "What we did was snogging, making out, gagging sugar, locking lips, planting a big one, zügenkiss!" I grasped for air and watched as her face became more and more disgusted each line. "Or as the Canadian would call it, we played tonsils hockey!" I threw my hands in the air dramatically and she blinked twice, bewildered.

"You watch Multilanguage porn?"

"That's besides the point!" I yelled.

It all went quiet for a moment and then, out of nowhere, the atmosphere soothed. At some point, I had stood up without even noticing so now Rachel and I were standing side to side, her hand on my shoulder and another tender smile on her lips:

"I'm sorry, Paulie, but we'd both be better off if we forgot what happened here yesterday. It really was meaningless to me."

Ouch.

"Look, don't be offended, hm…"She bit her lower lip. "How do I put this?" Her eyes traveled the room and stopped on her right hand. "Oh, I know!" She held the yogurt to my face. "You know how some people are lactose intolerant? Let's say I'm kinda like that but with relationships instead of dairy products." I raised an eyebrow at her:

"Meaning that, if you happened to have a boyfriend, you would get sick and fart a lot?" She scowled and I shivered. "Ok, go ahead."

"You see my point, don't you? Even though getting into relationships is good for most people to me is poisonous. It might not kill me but it'll hurt me and cause me all sorts of agony and embarrassment. It'd be extremely prejudicial to me and everyone around me." She just said the same thing I did but poetically, didn't she?

"Rach, I'm a person, I'm not yogurt." She seemed to consider my point for half a second and then shrugged.

"It's all the same to me." She said, throwing the empty yogurt bottle on the bin with great aim. "Now, why don't you change your clothes and we enjoy these last few days of me being here, uh? C'mon, we're going to the market, I'm cooking for you tonight again." She patted my shoulder a couple of times and went back to the couch. "As for yesterday, for me it's like it never happened at all so you should probably act the same."

From the counter, I watched the reflex of her figure lying on my sofa and swallowed any words that tried to come out just so I could grant her wishes. Her image kept getting mixed up with Nelly Furtado's face on the video MTV Hits was showing that moment. The lyrics went something like:

"She's a maneater/make you buy cars/make you cut cards/Wish you never ever met her at all/Never ever met her at all!/you wish you never ever met her at all!/you wish you never ever met her at all!"

I stared at the bin and the empty yogurt bottle lying there, forgotten and used and admired the irony of it all.

"It's all the same to me." She had said.

- -

It's impossible, I had thought, that she'd manage to simply erase from her memories the events of last night; however, there we were, half an hour after our argument, acting friendly as we browsed the market for groceries. Oh, I thought bitterly, I remember a time – not so long ago – when I used to have balls.

"Rach, c'mon, won't you even tell me the reasons that made you do it?" I tried for the thousandth time that morning. She looked vaguely into my eyes, pondering:

"Wheener."

"What?"

"I say, we need sausages, right?" My heart slowly went back to its normal pace.

"Don't play me like that, she-devil." She laughed and rolled her eyes at me.

"Get over yourself, Pauline."

"You can't simply ignore something happened just cause it's better for your conscience, Rachel. Nobody does that!"

"Wrong!" She said smirking. "Catholic church and politicians do it all the time." She sighed in awe. "Plus, I have no idea what you're talking about, anyway."

"Oh, shut up." By this time I was so frustrated I was about to stick my head inside the frozen food department – between nuggets and a turkey – just so I could slowly die of hypothermia. She laughed out loud:

"Catch me if you can, Pauline!" If she wanted to take my mind of the subject, it worked. We both had our own shop carts and, with one strong impulse of her feet, she rushed, leaving me behind, a few seconds later, I followed her.

I chased her as we used the shop carts under parts as skate boards:

"I should probably give you some advantage, Black." I said with a smirk. "You do realize, I'm literally, inhumanly fast, don't you?" She turned around with a scowl, she hated being challenged.

"All bark and no bite, right, Fido?" Everything started moving in slow motion. I watched as Rach lost balance for a second and I got a glimpse of her surprised face as she lost control of the cart. In less than a heartbeat, I let go of my own cart and raced towards her, catching her just before she hit the ground. She seemed a bit overwhelmed and even a little dazzled she then looked at me and said:

"Suppose this is the moment you'll say something sappy like "I'll always be here to catch you when you fall."?" I chuckled half relieved, half proud of myself. Her smirk disappeared and she said: "Nice catch, loverboy, now get off me." I couldn't do that, though, it felt too nice to have her like that, in my arms. "Paul, watch out!" She shouted staring at something behind me. I turned around just in time to see my shop cart coming towards us at full speed (my speed by the way). You see, usually, I'd just have stopped the cart with one hand but maybe it was because I was too dazzled by Rachel being in my arms, or too nervous because of her scared shout but what happened next was only partially my fault.

It was reflex, really, all I did was raise an arm to stop the cart and defend Rachel so I just slapped it a bit so it would change directions I didn't, however, remember to control my force so it was no surprise when the cart went flying all the way through the market, hit a olive oil shelf, breaking most of the products and finally landed loudly on the cash register number two.

Ok, I admit it. It was mostly my fault.

--

"I can't believe you got us expelled from a market!" Rachel's face was flushed both by anger and embarrassment. "What kind of secret legendary warrior are you if you can't even stop a shopping cart?"

"Jeez, Paul, thanks for saving my ass back there. You're the best." I muttered to myself what I had expected her to say.

"You're impossible, now I can't cook you dinner, this means we'll have to go out for food. Do you understand what that means?"

"Dressing up, spending money and, maybe, food poison?" I tried.

"No!" She shouted throwing her arms in the air. "It means I'll have to be seeing around town in your company!" That was rude, Rachel was evil and – honestly quite bipolar – but she was hardly ever rude. I could see she was really mad at me, I had no idea she cared so much about being accepted in markets and stuff.

"Hey, that was harsh and gratui…" But before I could finish my sentence a female voice called me from near:

"Paul!" The voice yelled, I recognized it as being Kim's voice.

"Kim?" I turned around to see a tiny girl running towards me.

"Kim? Who's Kim?" I heard Rachel asking. Kim approached us and stopped at my side, trying to catch her breath.

"Oh, man, you guys have long legs. Jared heard the two of you from a few blocks away and I ran here to see if you guys were here." She then smiled at me and I patted her on the head.

"How are you doing, Kimmeleon?" I said, we all had this stupid habit of calling Kim different variations of her name. I had been the one to start it and it wasn't until then, when I was standing next to Rachel; that I realized from where I had gotten the idea.

"Oh I'm fine!" But I could see her eyes were both curiously focused on the girl behind me. I smile, typical Kim.

"Kim, this is Rachel Black." Kim smiled from ear to ear like she knew a secret Rachel didn't.

"Uh…"Maybe Rach was a bit shocked by Kim's cheerfulness but it took her a bit to answer. "Nice to meet you, Kim." I then saw Jared jogging in our direction.

"Hey, bro, nice seeing you." I said, he smiled at me and then at Rachel.

"Rachel B." he said "What a pleasure." Seeing Jared Rachel understood everything.

"I'm assuming you too have a wild side then." She said. Jared laughed out loud and so did Kim. They were so in sync it was scary.

"I guess you could say that." He turned to me again. "What you guys doing around here?" Rachel and I stared at each other.

"Shopping." We said in unison.

"Oh, I see. So were me and Kimmie but we…" Kim blushed and Jared laughed, caressing her hair. "We got expelled from the market by the new manager."

"Oh…did you?" Rachel asked, impressed. "What are the odds? We were expelled too."

"Is that so? Well, they're such prudes. I kissed Kim and next thing I new the guy was preaching me about that not being a good behavior and a whole bunch of crap. So, why did you guys got expelled?" Once again, Rachel and I glanced at each other before answering; we pondered for a second what would be less humiliating and then nodded our head:

"Yeah, that was totally it, same reason here, dude." We said in agreement.

"Yeah, kissing is bad behavior." She said after me. Jared grinned.

"Good to know you two are getting along then." He sighed. "Well, now that you saw what you wanted, Kim, can we go?" Kim smiled and nodded her head. "Well, we are off." They were already on their way when Kim suddenly turned around and ran towards us again. She looked at Rachel.

"What?" Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow but before she could say anything else, Kim threw her arms around her. Rachel gasped and looked at me with the biggest "wtf" expression I had ever seen. I guffawed. Just as she had come, though, Kim ran away, Jared waved at us one last time and we watched them as they parted.

"What was that about?" She asked me once they were far enough – even though I'm pretty sure Jared could still hear us – I smiled at her:

"Well, couldn't you tell?" She crossed her arms and we started walking back home again.

"She's his imprint." She said that much after a while. "I could see that much. He walked around him, like she was some pet or something." I smiled bitterly:

"Is that what you think? Some would say is exactly the opposite." I sighed; Rachel stared at me and grunted:

"Well, if you think you're my pet then just forget me." I didn't dignify that stupid comment with an answer. She looked at me. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way; I know you can't actually forget me."

"Great." I said absently. We walked quietly side by side for a little longer.

"How did they get together?"

"What?"

"Jared and Kim, how it happened for them?" I was surprised she was asking me those questions but I answered anyway.

"He saw her, he imprited. He had never looked at her twice even though they studied together and then, one day, there she was. Luckily for him, though, she had been secretly in love with him, like, her whole life." Rachel frowned.

"How pathetic."

"What?"

"You're telling me that girl was genuinely happy when she found out the guy she liked for years was now forced to like her? Doesn't she have any pride?"

"Oh, she does." I answered with a smirk. "I'm not saying she took things lightly. Jared went through hell." Rachel didn't ask anything but I kept going. "At first she wouldn't believe him at all, she'd stalk him like crazy just cause she was convinced he had done one of those teenage movie bets with someone from our school, then she stopped talking to him, then she burned some of his clothes by accident while yelling at him and when he tried writing her a song, she punched him. And, don't get me wrong, Kim is small and all but that girl can throw a punch." Rachel stared at me in shock.

"But she eventually gave in?"

"Giving in is not the correct expression. She accepted it, Jared loved her, imprinting makes you love someone, sure, and it might sound mandatory to you but the reason you imprint is because that person is perfect for you and she would be perfect for you even if you weren't a werewolf. Imprint only shows you the way; it doesn't really control your heart."

"Except it does." She said. We were quiet again until she spoke. "Any chance you'd know why the weirdo hugged me back there?" I laughed.

"That's Kim for you."

"I guess that settles it then." She answered ironically.

"No, you don't get it." I said, calming her down. "Kim is great but she was never good at making friends so she finds this whole wolf thing awesome, really. The whole brotherhood and all, to her, all the other imprints are like sisters – the girl is so nice even Leah likes her."

"Leah likes her?"

"Yes." Leah's opinion was always a important matter for Rachel.

"I see." Silence again, this time we walked a whole five minutes without a word.

"I think I can admire someone like that."

"Uh?"

"Someone like that girl, I mean,…" Rachel stared at her own shoes. "She's thankful people like her, she's ok with being loved and she can simply be nice to people who want her best. That's something I can admire."

"Meaning you'll try to be more thankful towards me and maybe, just maybe, try and be more affectionate?" I said half joking, half hoping for an answer. Rachel smiled at me her vilest smile:

"The only thing about me that wants to be more affectionate towards you is my fist against your face, Pauline." I laughed cause I knew – or just hoped, really – she was joking.

"Aren't you the sweetest thing?" I said. And I meant it.

A/N: Once again, I'm sorry it's not the end yet but it was taking me ages to write and it was getting so long, I felt like I owed you a new chapter. Please read and review and hopefully this part II will help me write part 3 (and the last) much, much faster. Happy Holidays everyone and, please review.

It wasn't the funniest of chapters but hey, we're hitting a climax, things are supposed to be serious. Hopefully someday I'll write more Kim/Jared so I can show you the hell the poor guy went through with his Kim.