A/N: As promised, the infamous diner incident. Special mention for Kiera who knows why she is in here :)

The Diner Incident

As the bell went for the last class of the day, Kaia Reynolds heaved a sigh of relief. Friday afternoons were always great, since you knew you had the whole weekend ahead of you, but she really wished that she could go straight from the Friday morning to the last class of the day. Having to deal with Lester Stevens in the only class she didn't share with one of the others, was something she could have done without. Not like she couldn't handle his annoying comments, just because she missed the familiarity of having some of the pack in close quarters. She paused for a minute to think about the way she had made friends with all of them. Collin and Brady in particular, speaking of whom, she spotted a head of dark hair poked into her classroom door.

"Oi, Midget! You planning on stickin' around for extra credit or somethin' ?" Collin snickered. Her only answer was to sashay past him while managing to bump him with her back-pack.
"Ow ow owwww," came his extremely fake howls of pain, holding on to his arm and hopping in the corridor just outside her class-room. Brady rolled his eyes and then bit back his intended comment when he saw their teacher looking at Collin with an amused/quizzical expression on her face.
"Is there a problem Mr. Jameson?" she enquired.
"Umm.. no ma'am," that worthy replied sheepishly, before sticking his tongue out at Kaia as soon as the teacher's back was turned. She replied in kind, only for both of them to jump at the sound of Brady clearing his throat in imitation of the teacher who had just left.
"Juveniles," he muttered, leading them out through the doors, where Collin and Brady's motorcycles were parked. Looking confused, Kaia glanced around, wondering where Seth was.

Brady caught her eye and then winked at Collin over her head. "Seth had to go pick up some stuff for his mom, K. You wanna go get something to eat with us before we go home?" Brady asked.
"Sure," she replied, ignoring that slightly deflated feeling she had that Seth had left without even saying anything to her. They had grown pretty close the past couple of weeks, especially since that kiss at the party. She grabbed the helmet that Brady offered her and paused before she got on the back of his motorcycle. After an episode that involved the twins offering her a ride whenever she wanted one, Seth had gone close to ballistic until she had promised to wear the one of the spare helmets that they always had on the backs of their bikes. Slipping it on, she pulled her phone out of her pocket before climbing on. As she did, she noticed a new text.

'Sorry had 2 run.. mom had errands. will call u l8er?'

She grinned to herself before quickly sending back 'sure. Ttyl. xoxo'

Climbing on the back of Brady's motorcycle, she missed the grin the two shifters threw at each other, before they sped out of the parking lot. Sped being a relative term of course. Being close to indestructible meant, that going much faster than was safe for the average human, was something these two did on a regular basis. But the last time they had done that, Kaia had been screaming with delight, and laughing out loud as the rush of speeding down the highway. That had been the fun part. The not-so-fun part came later that night when they were on patrol and Seth had phased to run over to Rachel's where he sometimes camped out under her window. Seth had seen everything in their heads and it had taken a very well timed command from Jake to stop him attacking his brothers and best friends.

While this was not something the Jameson twins held against him; that WAS his imprint after all, they understood why he would be worried. He had made them swear, on pain of death, to never cross the speed limits when Kaia was with them. Brady had been the first to capitulate and agree. Collin had been flooded with hurt that Seth would assume he or Brady would purposefully endanger Kaia's life. This of course only lasted as long as it took him to see the desperation in Seth's eyes as he contemplated the many ways she could have been hurt. Phasing back to human form, Collin looked his pack-brother right in the eye and stated, "She feels like my baby sister Seth. There is no way in hell I would let her get hurt. And neither would Brady."

Once they cleared the stretch of highway and pulled into the Diner in Forks that they liked, Collin couldn't help but laugh as Kaia attempted to get off the back of Brady's motorcycle while simultaneously tugging at the helmet she hated. It wasn't something she would refuse outright to wear though. She just made sure she voiced her displeasure at every opportunity. Nearly tripping over her own feet because she was distracted, she grumbled as she finally yanked it off her head and glared at the sniggering twins, before tossing her hair and stalking into the diner.

Once they were sitting down and reading through the menu, Kaia began drumming her fingers on the side of the table. Even after Brady called her on it, she seemed to start doing it again barely seconds later. Finally Collin couldn't help himself and burst out, "What on earth are you doing that for?"
Startled, she looked up and then pulled a face at him, muttering, "Oh excuse meeee Mister Harry Potter, with your what on earth are you doing… nyeh nyeh nyeh…"
Brady and Collin just looked at each other once before turning back to the other occupant at their table, who had by then resumed the relentless finger drumming. Moving as one, the boys each grabbed one of her hands, making her look up from the menu once more. Scowling, she asked, "What?"

Raising his eyebrow at the sudden snappy tone of the normally sunny-natured girl, Brady couldn't help but ask, "Ok.. what's wrong with you?"
Slumping forward in her chair, she groaned and then mumbled, "I'm so freaking hungry. I skipped lunch because I had to clean up after that Chemistry debacle, and I woke up too late to eat breakfast this morning. I'M STARVING!"
Trying, and failing, to cover up their laughter the twins signaled that they were ready to order. Collin's smile turned into a wide grin as their waitress came over. Kiera was a bright, bubbly, sophomore who was always up for a good laugh. "Hey," he called out, as she approached their table, "since when do you work here?"
She grinned back at the 3 of them, and replied, "Since last week when my dad decided I could pitch in if I wanted a better car on my 16th."
"Nice" Brady interjected.
"So… what can I get you guys?" she jumped when Kaia suddenly began rattling off items one after another.
"Ok then, hungry are we?" she laughed, before taking Collin and Brady's order as well before she went back to give it in to the kitchen. Once she had gone, Kaia lowered her head to the table and pretended to die of starvation. She jumped when a big mug of hot chocolate suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the table in front of her. Looking up, she caught Kiera's infectious grin as she winked and said, "To keep you going until the food gets here. On me" before walking away.

Smirking at the other two at her table, she proceeded to drink as much of it as she could, before either one of the twins could grab the mug away from her. Laughing and joking with each other, they were distracted enough so that only Kaia noticed the tall, slender beauty who walked into the diner with 2 other girls, and took a seat in the far corner. She threw the 3 of them a disdainful glare and then proceeded to talk to her 2 friends extremely loudly. This wouldn't have bothered any of the other occupants, the diner was hardly a library, if it hadn't been for the topic of conversation.

Being as rude as possible without being actually racist, and stopping just short of truly offensive, the girl began an uninterrupted monologue about how outsiders shouldn't be allowed in places they weren't welcome. Kaia simply gaped at her in shock that someone could behave like that in public, while Brady looked at his placemat with a grim expression on his face. Kiera brought out a stack of pancakes and waffles dripping in syrup and placed it on the table, looking mutinous.
Confused at this turn of events, Kaia turned to Collin to ask about it, only to be shocked at the pain so obvious on his face.
He stared down at the table, not even raising his head when Kaia softly called his name. Brady looked up then, anger clear in his eyes. Kaia could tell it was taking an effort for him not to lose his temper, but she had no idea what was going on. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Brady, and he growled under his breath.
"That's Serena, Collin's ex-girlfriend. He broke up with her a while ago… stuff came up… and she didn't deal with it too well. Since then she's pretty much been a bitch about it. You can't even throw her out of this place because her uncle owns it. Remarks like that is the norm for her."

"Let's just go man," Collin mumbled. "Before she starts in on Kaia too… you know she will."
Touched that his first thought was for her, even though the girl he had gone out with was being such a capital Bitch, Kaia decided on her plan of action. There was no way some high school hater was going to make her leave.
Her face set, she looked at the twins in turn and then said, "No. I never get to hang out with just the two of you very often. So we are staying. Queen Bitch over there can go to hell… and take her fake Pradas with her." She had raised her voice a little at the last part of her sentence, so the girl in question had turned to glare at her. She had intended to make them so uncomfortable that they would have no choice but to leave.

She had been quite thrilled when she managed to manipulate Collin Jameson into asking her out the previous year. He had always been a good-looking kinda guy, but last year he seemed to shoot up suddenly and looked more built than the line-backers at Forks High, where she went to school. But then, almost overnight, he had decided they were not a good idea and dumped her. Out of the blue. No warning whatsoever. Serena was furious. No-one dumped her. She was the one who did the dumping. So starting from then, she did nothing but cause as much discomfort as possible when it came to any of the GANG that Collin hung out with.

The fact that he had phased and was a shape-shifter who could endanger her life, was the ultimate irony. He had broken up with her, so he wouldn't hurt her, and that was all she could do now. Hurt him. As much as she possibly could. He wouldn't have minded so much if it wasn't for the way she behaved to the rest of the pack as well, including the imprints. She had made the mistake of slyly insulting Kim and Emily the last time they had been out Grocery shopping. Emily had turned to face her full on, her scars standing out clearly, and then dismissed her with a casual, "Kids" to Kim before they strolled to the check-out.

So while Serena carried on with her tirade, Kaia elected to ignore her and with Brady a willing ally, they dragged Collin out of his miserable mood and into their ridiculous conversation about nudist colonies with overweight residents. The amount of sugar they had consumed by this point made it a cinch. The more they ignored her, the angrier Serena got, until she had finally had enough and as soon as there was a lull in the conversation, she piped up to the other occupants of her table. "Well… it looks like the Jameson twins have learned to share. I wonder how they convinced her to do it…"

The shocked silence that followed was only broken by the scrape of a chair against the floor as Kaia decided that she had had enough of the girl's narrow-minded prattling. Before either one of the Jamesons could reach for her hand, she stalked over to Serena's table and loomed over the taller girl, who looked up at her with feigned dis-interest. "What do you wa…" she began to ask, when she was interrupted by a fist to her face. Clutching her nose, she stumbled backwards out of her chair, only to bump into Kiera who was holding up a tray of 3 very large hot chocolates. Soaked in the sticky beverage, and holding her injured nose, she screamed in fury before stalking out of the diner, followed by her 2 sycophantic companions.

Kiera and Kaia stood looking at each other for a few seconds before smiling and shaking hands, each one going back to their respective positions. As she passed their table, Collin snagged Kiera's hand and murmured, "No one in here ordered hot chocolate, did they?"
She smiled mischievously and then chirped, "I have no idea what you mean Jameson."

Once she had gone, Kaia took her place at their table once more and they continued where they had left off. The sugar in their blood streams had by this point turned them into near clones of the gremlins in that movie they had watched last week. Time passed and they seemed to forget that they might have to get back, as they sat there getting further and further along a sugar high straight out of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

Which was why, an hour after Serena had left, when Charlie Swan came in, looking slightly puzzled, the 3 of them had looked at each other and burst out laughing. Shaking his head, Charlie went over to them and said, "I'm assuming whatever it was that girl told me was true."
"Yup, Cheif" Kaia piped up. "She had a little too much to say about my friend and so I shut her up."
Charlie sighed and then said, "Ok you guys, you're going to have to come in with me. You can call Rachel or your mom and dad from the station."
"Are we under arrest?" came Kaia's slightly excited question.

"No, you're not… I just need it to be a formal warning against physical violence…" came his gruff reply.

"Oh.. damn" was Kaia's disappointed observation.
"Yeah, I can see how worried you are" was Charlie's amused reply.

Later, sitting in the station, after Charlie had made both the phone calls to their respective guardians to come and get them, Collin couldn't help but ask.
"What is it with you and throwing punches Kai?"

She grinned and winked at him as Seth burst into the station with Rachel just behind him.

"I don't like people who mess with my family."

A/N: Well? Thoughts?
Don't forget to review!