A/N: Thanks to Team Jacob and SimplyMe for reviewing! Simply, in the original roleplay Sydney was really just a filler (like a Jessica, kind of) because Meryl's not the type of person to keep to herself and not make any friends even on the first day, but I'm trying to make her into something a little more here. Still the same Sydney, just a tiny bit more Quil obsessed.

Disclaimer: In between posting chapter 2 and this, I made a batch of cookies, read the first three chapters of A Farewell to Arms (ugh), played with my cat, and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (for the first time since I saw it in theaters…YEAH!). At no point did I lie down for a nap and dream about a sparkly pale guy and a hot tan guy fighting over me. So, this means I'm not who? Right. (Really, the HP part alone should have given it away.) Enjoy!

Into Something Good – The Bird and the Bee (Meryl's POV)

If You're not the One – Daniel Bedingfield (Jacob's POV)

When Meryl walked into her last period Calculus class, the first thing she saw was the beautiful tan boy sitting in the back of the room, and the second thing she noticed was that the seat next to him was empty.

Maybe 'beautiful' wasn't the word for him. He was, of course, but Meryl had had enough prior experience with boys to know that they didn't normally take well to being called beautiful, or anything like it. (Except maybe her brother, if he was fishing for compliments. But that was another story, for another day.) Maybe fine? Fine. That was it. He was most definitely fine. She decided it was alright for him to stare. He could sneak into her room and watch her sleep if he wanted. She wouldn't care, as long as he didn't care about the knife she was keeping under her bed (just in case—she would have gone for a gun instead, since it was bear country, but she'd have to wait until April to do that legally), or the pepper spray she had stashed in her purse.

She realized that she was really being even worse than Sydney, drooling over a boy she didn't even know. Oh, well. He was pretty fine.

Meryl felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to see a man who was obviously the teacher. He wasn't much taller than her, and he couldn't be older than twenty three or twenty four, but something about the way he held something made it apparent that he was in charge, or at least considered himself to be.

"Hello. You're Meryl Stepp?" It took her a second to realize that he was not staring at the logo on her shirt, but at her breasts.

"Yes." Meryl replied uncomfortably, shifting the textbook she was holding so it was against her chest.

"Great. I'm Mr. Price. My email's on the board for if you ever have any questions about homework or exams. Here's a worksheet, just to make sure that you remember the basics from the rest of high school math, because we will be applying it to some of this year's material. I don't like to seat in alphabetical order, you always sit next to the same people, so you can sit next to Jacob Black, there in the back row." He jerked his head towards where Jacob was sitting, his eyes lingering on her chest for a moment more before he sat down at his desk, starting to go over the seating chart and filling in names, calling out one every once in a while to see where students were sitting.

Jacob Black. The name seemed to fit him so perfectly now that she almost didn't know how she hadn't guessed it before. His hair was jet black, too, and even though she hadn't really gotten a good look at his eyes yet she was sure that those would be dark too.

Meryl made a face, hurrying to the back of the class and taking the seat next to Jacob, offering him a smile. "Hey, I'm Meryl. Is he the only creepy teacher, or are there others I should be looking out for?"

Jacob was sure that his face was going to fall off, he was trying not to smile that much, when he saw the girl walk into the room. Awesome. He had never been the best at math, other than geometry in sophomore year (but seriously, wasn't that easy for everyone?) and had been dreading this ever since he had gotten his schedule back in August, especially when he saw that his teacher was going to be Mr. Price. It was only the teacher's second year, but he had worked up quite a reputation for himself already. Most of the girls in his grade were constantly mooning over him. He guessed that Mr. Price could be considered somewhat attractive, for a guy, even if he was a little short, but he still stared back at the girls just a little too much. He had wished he had gotten Mrs. Kelly, the heavyset and middle-aged but absolutely hilarious teacher that he had had in his freshman year, who had split the senior classes with Mr. Price. Embry and Quil had both had her before lunch and had spent a good ten minutes laughing over some story she had told to wake up the class after the long, lazy summer break.

But now he didn't mind even that. This was the only class he would have with Meryl all year, and, as he noticed after quickly scanning the room, the only free seat was right next to him.

He pretended to be working on the first problem as Meryl came up to him, giving in to the urge to inhale as she got closer. Oh, God. She even smelled good. He couldn't remember the last time he had smelled a girl and actually smelled…girl. He wasn't sure it was perfume, and none of the girls he knew well wore it anyway (Leah would never be caught dead in it, Rachel wasn't really one to dress up unless she had to, Emily just smelled…clean, like her whole house did, Jared would beat him up if he even thought about smelling Kim, and Claire was way too young to be wearing perfume or even care how she smelled.) Now that he thought about it, he didn't know very many girls. Even that couldn't depress him now.

"Hey." Jacob beamed up at her, immediately feeling like his whole chest was right in the middle of the most brilliant feeling fire in the was the first time he had really gotten a good look at her, up close. Embry hadn't been generous enough when he had called her pretty. She was just…ah.

He had never been the girl-crazy type. That had been Quil's job, until he had met Claire and his world suddenly revolved around a toddler. Claire was a great little kid (and he was probably biased, since even he had to admit that his heart had melted the first time she had called him 'Unca Jay'), and even though she was only four, he could tell that she would grow up to be just the type of girl Quil liked, and the days of skirt-chasing were over for him. But Meryl was in a category of her own.

He scooted over to make room for Meryl, trying to squeeze his legs under the table so she would have some space to move around. He had never thought any bad things about his size until now.

"Nah, he's the only perv. That's smart, with the textbook. Keep that around in this class. I've never had him before, but apparently he sets it up so that the…biggest girls sit in the front and he always helps them first. Uh, no insult to you. So, yeah. Encouraging, right, on your first day? I'm Jacob. Or Jake. Whichever."

Meryl. Definitely not a very common name. It fit her. She wasn't anything usual.

Meryl smiled back at him, briefly wishing that he had wanted to shake hands just so she would have a decent excuse to touch him. He looked like he could hold both of her hands in one of his, and she wanted to see if that was true. They looked a little callused, like he had done a lot of work with them, and she could practically feel warmth radiating off of him. The windows were open even though it was a little chilly, and she wished she could just move a little bit closer to see if it really was him that was warm and not a waft of heat coming from a vent somewhere.

"Good to know. I'll try and wear a collared shirt tomorrow." She flipped the worksheet over, starting to sketch her family crest (which, ironically, consisted of a wolf on a shield-type background, and something in an unrecognizable language strung across the bottom). "So, Jacob…Any reason you were staring at me earlier, at lunch? I had a bit of a spazz-out, had to go check in the bathroom to make sure nothing was on my face."

"There was nothing on your face." He assured her, smiling. "Y'know, we just don't get newbies around here very much. Especially since it's our last year and all. And it's even rarer that we get…white new kids. Mostly they're Makah kids who are bored of the Neah Bay school or kids who moved away from the rez when they were little and came back. Anyway, sorry. Didn't mean to seem creepy."

Why was he apologizing? Even when he had been staring, when her instincts should have been telling that that was weird and possibly dangerous, she had felt completely safe. And that was what had scared her so much. As cute as he was, he was a stranger. She didn't know him. She wanted to know him, and hopefully some higher power had made they were placed together for a reason, but where was her common sense?

"Don't say you're sorry….I mean, you're very attractive, I'm sure you have a girlfriend or someone interested in you or something. Don't want to make her jealous." Shit. Why had she said that? Well, he probably knew he was attractive anyway, most good looking guys did. And if there was a girlfriend somewhere, she would know to be careful.

"Girlfriend? Uh, no. I mean, I guess, if anything happened, I'd be open to it…But not right now, no."

He looked nervous, just a little, as he started scribbling an answer down. He had never been too smooth or level-headed in situations like this. Quil had nearly killed him several times because he had gotten so worked up over even the littlest bit of flirting. It had always come so easily to him….

"Ah, so, what's that?" Jacob tapped her worksheet with his pencil, wondering what kind of connection she had to wolves. That was strange.

"It's my family crest. Weird, I know, right? Wolves in Georgia. But they're there." Meryl answered, biting her lip as she drew and smiling a little to herself. No girlfriend. Hm.

"Georgia? Cool. You don't really have the accent."
"Yeah, it only comes out a little bit, sometimes. We're not all hicks." She teased, flipping the paper back over and starting to work on the first problem.

"So you just moved?"

"Yup. Emancipated."

"Cool." Jacob thought this over for a second, reading over the next problem. "You don't get lonely?"

Aw. Sweet. He cared that she was lonely. At least, she thought that's what it sounded like.

"Not really. I mean, yeah, it's quiet. It's still better than back home."

Jacob sensed that this was a sore subject and skipped over it, staying quiet for a minute or two. "We better finish these up before he comes over here and talks to your boobs again."

Meryl laughed, glad that he had had the sense to avoid the topic of her family. She loved her brother, and her parents had their good days, but she just couldn't deal with it anymore. And the rumors that had been going around town, when she left…That she was pregnant again and this time her parents just weren't having it, that she was running away to New York to be a Rockette, or a stripper, that she was planning a trip to Vegas to get married…

"Yeah. Hey, do you know any good places to eat around here? I haven't really had the chance to go grocery shopping yet."

He jumped at the new subject, worried that by avoiding asking about 'home' she would think he wasn't interested or just didn't care enough. "My dad gets tired of using me as a guinea pig, now that my sister's living with her boyfriend. The second he hears about a new girl in town he'll start making gallons of spaghetti. Your freezer will be full for months."

She smiled at this, starting to shove her textbook back into her bag as the bell ran. If every class was going to go by this quickly she might actually start to look forward to math. "Alright. Here, I'll write down my address and you can just drop by whenever."

He was sure he had imagined emphasis on the 'you'. He would get to see her again. At her house. How many seventeen year old girls lived alone? God, the old Quil would be writing down a script for him if he was here. 'Here, this is how you get in her pants', he would say. New Quil understood it was so much more than that. He couldn't blame him for feeling so much for Claire anymore. Love, not necessarily romantic love (though he was sure he felt that too, now), just pure respect and admiration and devotion and caring, and that's what Jacob was feeling right now.

But, yes, being a teenage boy the thought of being in a house alone with a girl did make him feel a little lightheaded. She'd better like al dente spaghetti, he thought, so he could get over there as fast as possible.

"Awesome." He grinned, looking at the address written on the corner of his worksheet. She didn't live all that far away. "So, I'll see you later?"

"You better be there, I'm counting on you for my dinner now." Meryl smiled at him, giving him a little wave and heading up the aisle, being careful to stay as far away from Mr. Price's desk as she could as she left.

And so, Jacob Black had fallen in love. (To the average person, this might have appeared as maybe a little bit too soon, but he had always been the type who fell hard and fast. This somewhat undesirable quality had first been noticed by his mother, when, after his first day of first grade, he had come practically skipping in the back door into the kitchen, sighed longingly, and went on to spend the next two weeks talking about the third grader who had offered him her swing.)

Meryl had too.

Possibly the quickest update I'll ever have! Reviews get big wolf hugs.