Disclaimer: you know the thing about me not owning it

AN: I actually thought I'd be done with this story by now. I was wrong.

"Jo. Jo, wake up," Rick said, sitting on his daughter's bed and shaking her shoulder.

She groaned, barely opening her eyes. "No sun. What time is it?" she mumbled.

"3:47," he told her.

"Come back in five hours," she said before rolling onto her stomach.

"No. Come on, you'll miss it."

"What, the sun rising?"

"That won't happen until about 7. Wake up, hurry."

The teenager groaned again as she sat up. "Dad, I'm not in the mood. It's early and I'm tired and I lost my necklace and…"

Rick held up a finger, looking at her clock then smiled as the time changed. "Happy birthday."

She let out a quick laugh, rolling her eyes. "Why do you do this every year?"

"Because I want you to experience the moment you get older."

"You do realize I'm always getting older, my birthday has nothing to do with it."

"Why do you and your mother like to ruin things for me?"

"You make it easy. Speaking of Mom, I think she'd really enjoy celebrating my birth with you right now."

"No, she remembers. 37 hours of labor isn't something you easily forget. Luckily, your brothers and Sara just slid right out. You must have loosened things up down there."

Jo blinked rapidly, shaking her head. "There's an image I'll never get out of my head. Not what I wanted for my birthday."

He smiled. "Your birthday breakfast will be ready whenever you are."

"Dad, you don't need to make me breakfast. I'm fine with just toast."

"It's your birthday. Don't worry, I talked to your grandmother, all the ingredients are safe for your voice."

She let out a quick laugh. Martha had put her on a strict diet full of food and drinks safe for her singing voice, and making sure certain food groups never made it near Jo's plate. "Great," she murmured. "Can I go back to bed though? Gram will kill you if she finds out you didn't let me get a full night's sleep."

"Yeah, alright Miss Diva." He kissed his daughter's forehead quickly. "Happy birthday," he whispered before leaving the room.

Jo shook her head as she walked to her locker, finding it covered in bright wrapping paper with paper streamers hanging from the top. "Happy birthday, Jojo," Kelly said, jumping out of a nearby classroom. "Like your locker?"

"I should have known you'd be the one vandalizing my locker."

"Matt helped."

"Yeah, that sounds like something he'd do voluntarily."

"Alright, so I talked him into it."

Jo raised one eyebrow at her. "How did you do that?"

"I have my ways."

The brunette crossed her arms. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Calm your tits. We already had this conversation."

"Don't care. Explain."

Kelly almost laughed. "You're ridiculous, you know that? That boy is wrapped around your finger." She bounced closer to Jo until she was uncomfortably close to the other girl. "I just put on my Galinda face," she said, her voice slightly higher pitched than normal, the voice she spoke in for the play. "She's hard to say no to," she sang.

Jo put one hand on Kelly's shoulder, pushing her a few steps back. "Got it." She glanced at her neck, noticing the chain that hung around her neck. "Is that new?"

"Oh, yeah." Kelly smiled, pulling the necklace out of her shirt and showing it to Jo. "Apparently Adam is learning a few things from Mr. Perfect."

Jo stared at the necklace for a moment then shook her head. "Except Matt doesn't steal things. That's my necklace. The one I lost the other day." When Kelly shook her head, Jo pulled out her phone and found a picture of her with Matt, curled up together on the couch at her house. She enlarged the picture until the necklace was visible.

"Ok, I'm sure there's more than one necklace like this."

Jo grabbed the chain of the necklace to examine the pendant. "There's three stones missing. They fell out when I got tackled..." she cut herself off. She clinched one fist, shaking her head as the bell rang. "Forget it," she muttered before walking past Kelly and going down the hall to her class.

"Jo," Kelly called after her.

"Ms. Olsen," a teacher said behind her. "I believer you're looking for my class?"

Kelly looked once more at Jo as she turned into a classroom at the other end of the hall then went into her class.

"There you are," Matt said as he walked down the hallway, finding Jo sitting on the floor near their lockers. "You missed lunch. I got you a giant cookie," he said, moving to sit next to her and handing her the cookie wrapped in a napkin.

"You know I have to stay away from dairy," she muttered, dropping the cookie in his lap.

"It's your birthday, you're allowed to eat whatever you want today. It's the law."

"You're more than welcome to tell my grandma that."

"What, she's not gonna let you have a cake or anything?"

Jo shook her head. "Only if it's gluten free, dairy free and has no artificial ingredients."

"Sounds yummy." He opened the napkin, taking a bite of the cookie then held it towards her. "You sure? It's still warm."

"Yeah, because it was in your pocket." She shook her head then leaned forward to take a small bite as he held it.

"Did you make a wish?"

She swallowed the bite, arching an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure that happens when you blow out your candles."

"We're in school, no open flames allowed. Birthday cookie is the best I can do."

"Well, you ate part of it."

"I can baby bird it into your mouth."

"Gross." She smiled, shaking her head. "You're a dork," she muttered.

"At least I finally got you to smile." He leaned over, bumping his shoulder against hers. "Are you gonna tell me why you're so upset?"

"I'm not," she lied. "I'm tired. My dad has this thing about experiencing the moment you get older so he woke me up at 3 this morning."

He stood suddenly, opening his locker and pulling a long, thin package out of his backpack. "Would your birthday present make you feel better?"

She bit her lip, smiling up at him. "Maybe," she whispered, shrugging her shoulder. "Did you get me another necklace?"

"No," he said as he sat down next to her again. "I kind of thought you'd have that for a while yet." He handed the box to her but kept his hold on it for a moment. "No taking this off. If you need to, I'll hold onto it for you."

"Deal," she said, pulling the box out of his hand. She tore the wrapping paper off and pulled the lid of the jewelry box off, finding a silver charm bracelet with five charms, an emerald green bead, a shooting star, a blue topaz bead, a heart and a crown.

"The crown I just picked up the other day," he told her as he helped her put it on her wrist. "Green is for Wicked, the star is because, well, you're gonna be a star someday, you know topaz is your birthstone. The heart's obvious. I thought maybe we could add onto this every year."

"Oh, so this is your way out of buying me a present for my birthday next year?"

"No, you'll get a present. It'll be the 18 charm."

She punched him in the arm then laughed and leaned against his shoulder as she shook her arm to get a better look at the charms. "How did I get so lucky? I mean, you're actually so perfect it gets annoying sometimes."

"Thanks, I think." He shook his head quickly. "Actually, it was more of a series of bad luck. I mean, you got kicked out of school then your mom got shot and you…"

"Babe, the annoying thing? That's what I mean. Stop being right all the time."

"I'll try," he said with a laugh. He touched her chin, tilting her head up and kissed her quickly. "I owe you 16 more."

AN: weird place to end it but this is literally twice as long as most of the chapters. I honestly thought I'd never update this story again and then this happened. I don't know.

AN2: If you follow me on tumblr you might know this, but I made a tumblr blog for "future" Jo that will basically replace any ideas I had for a sequel for this story. Go check it out: castle-jo dot tumblr dot com

Edit: I just realized I worded those last two notes awkwardly. The story isn't over. I don't know when the next chapter will be up but there won't be many more chapters. It will have a proper ending.