Bound to Happen

by BurnedRecords

Everything starts with Greenburg, then constantly gets worse. Stiles, as the human, can only take so much. Fem!Stiles. A bit of a retelling of both seasons so far.

1. Season 1

Bound to Happen: Season One

This is all Greenburg's fault.

Honestly, only he could turn such an innocent question into her undoing.

"Greenburg! This is no time to stare off into space! Move it!" Coach Finstock yelled over the normal locker room chaos.

"Sorry Coach, just thinking is all," the young man replied. Coach Finstock blinked for a moment before asking, "Do I really want to know, Greenburg?"

"Well I was just wondering, if lacrosse is our big sport instead of football, then why don't we have any cheerleaders at our games?" Everyone in the locker room turned to the boy, and then turned to look at each other, murmuring their questions and opinions to each other.

"Cheerleaders?" Scott asked, like he'd never heard the word before. Stiles raised an eyebrow at her best friend over from where she was compiling supplies for the players. Even though she was girl, she was their only manager, so she was allowed inside of the boy's locker room. "You know, cheerleaders? 2, 4, 6, 8, and all that crap. They stand on the sidelines and cheer over everything the team does. Leads cheers. Cheerleaders."

"Thank you for that wonderful definition, Bilinski! And Greenburg, keep up with the actual good ideas and I might actually tolerate your presence one day." Greenburg looked over to the coach in astonishment before accidently taking a step forward and falling on his face. Then everyone in the crowded locker room let out a sigh before getting back to the current topic.

Everyone, except Stiles, who really couldn't care less. It's not like it concerned her anyways.

And really, whenever she thinks that, life makes it a point to make her regret it.

They're out on the field now, Scott in line waiting to make a shot at Danny in the goal, and Stiles on the sidelines watching in avid interest as Danny blocks someone else's attempts at making a goal. Something keeps distracting her though, but not the normal shit that had been invading her life like the mysterious alpha or I'm-a-broody-murderer-that-isn't-technically-a-murderer Derek Hale, but Coach Finstock was putting out these waves of wow-I'm-about-to-do-something-I-think-is-a-great-idea-but-it-really-isn't. She honestly doesn't know why she hasn't run for the hills yet, because last time this happened, she was forced to do suicides with the rest of the team so that it could be 'fair'.

"Say Stilinski," Coach says as he turns to her, and since he used her actual last name, this is either going to turn out great, or absolutely horrid. She would have to bet her money on the latter. "I was giving the cheerleading idea some thought, and I like it." She blinks at him, because what did that even have to do with her, anyways?

"And?" she starts for him.

"I want you to do this for the team. Start up the group, get girls to join, start routines, or whatever it is that cheerleaders do." That makes Stiles laugh so hard, she falls off of the bench and rolls in the grass. Her high pitched, loud laugh-giggles are so loud, some of the members of the team are looking over at her, especially Scott, but she can't help it because Coach thinks she is somehow capable of pulling together a bunch of girls to cheer for their lacrosse team.

Her! The clumsiest girl on the entire planet!

Eventually she calms, but she stays on the ground trying to catch her breath as everyone just keeps staring at her. She looks up at Coach, expecting him to just say 'Yep, just kidding', but he doesn't. He just looks at her with his raised eyebrow and serious expression on his face.

Wait a second, oh hell no!

"You can't be serious," she tells him, because with everything that goes on in her life, cheerleading defiantly won't be one of those things. But his face doesn't change at all, and all Stiles is thinking about is how she can talk herself out of this one.

And then strangle Greenburg. She will have to do that latter.

She pulls herself up from her position on the ground and opens her mouth to argue her case, but then Lydia Martin pops out of nowhere and takes matters into her own hands.

"Sounds great, Coach. Stiles and I can totally do this." And Stiles has now lost the ability to even understand what is going on because Lydia Martin, who she idolized when she was younger (and might still idolize today), did not help her case at all. Sure, they had become somewhat of friends after she had visited Lydia after the Video Store incident, but this was- Stiles didn't even know what this was.

"But, wait, but I-" and now she was being dragged away by the most popular girl in school to make a cheerleading team. How was this her life?

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Stiles must have been in shock because of the completely unbelievable events that had just been smacked in her face, because the next thing she knows, she's at Lydia's house. She had been trying to listen to Lydia talk about ideas and designs for cheerleading costumes, and how Allison should join, and some other girls Stiles doesn't know, but she can't focus because how is she even involved in this at all?

"Stiles, are you even listening to me?" Lydia asks as she pushes Stiles lightly before waving a hand in front of her face. "Because you need to pay attention if you're going to be a part of this thing."

"But I don't want to be a part of this," she whines, "I just wanted to be a lacrosse manager." Lydia looks sad for a split second before molding her face into disappointment.

"Stiles, don't you want to spend time with me though? I figured that since we were friends, this would be something fun to do together, right?" Lydia flashes her puppy dog eyes at her and she melts. She didn't stand a chance against those, but-

"We're friends?" she asks in honest confusion, because the only real friend she's had for a while is Scott, but even he had been hanging around Allison more that her now, and she can't believe someone would even consider her friend material these days. Especially someone as perfect as Lydia Martin.

"Of course we're friends! So, now we are going to be hanging out a lot more, since I know Scott hasn't been around lately. We'll spend practices together, and shop for clothes and have sleepovers on weekends! It'll be fun. Maybe Jackson will even warm up to you and then he and Danny can hang out with us."

But Stiles' mind is practically imploding because this is too good to be true. Having friends instead of a friend, more than one friend. Friends. She beams with happiness, which apparently is approval enough for Lydia to keep going on planning their cheer squad.

This was turning out to not be too bad.

She is still going to strangle Greenburg, though.

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Of course, this is when shit gets weirder.

Apparently, Mr. Creeper Wolf tells Scott he needs to learn control. Which means Stiles needs to teach him how to control his wolf without having Scott tear out her intestines. Sounds like a bunch of fun.

She eventually comes up with a plan. Sort of.

The plan basically consists of her trying to elevate Scott's heart rate and hope that he controls his wolf and doesn't rip out her intestines. It's the best plan she has, at least.

To start off, she ties Scott's hand behind his back and starts to practice her aim, with actual lacrosse balls, on her best friend. Stiles would admit that it relieved a bit of her stress, all up until he nearly 'wolfs out', but he seemed to get it under control.

Next, she key scratched a car and blamed it on him, causing a group of guys to collectively beat the snot out of Scott, also nearly pushing him over the edge, until a teacher shows up and calls them off.

Finally, they end up in Coach Finstock's Economics class, where Coach grills Scott on his slacking, causing his heart rate to rise. Stiles was about ready to jump up and get Scott out of the classroom, until she noticed the heart monitor slow down. She looked over and saw Allison holding Scott's hand, which must have calmed him down.

"All werewolves need an anchor," Stiles mumbled to herself, "and Allison must be Scott's."

After school is done, she heads to Lydia's house for a few hours. They work on cheerleading tactics, who they have signed up for the squad, and the final details to the uniform. Lydia even somehow improves her abysmal coordination to where she can do a few basic moves without falling over. They eventually collapse on the sheets and just start talking to each other.

Stiles eventually sits up on the bed and stretches for a few seconds, before sliding off the bed and packing up.

"I better head home, I think we can work on the last few details next week, and then we can hold trials after that." Lydia nods in agreement. They say their goodbyes and Stiles is on the road to home.

Until her phone rings and suddenly Stiles is picking up Scott for a half-assed plan that they took all of 5 minutes to make during lunch, and they are heading towards the school. And Derek, too, because apparently he kidnapped Scott's boss because Derek thinks Dr. Deaton is the alpha.

Is it too much to ask to just go home, sometimes?

Anyways, they get to the school, and there he is in all of his Sourwolf glory. And Scott's boss is there too, all tied up in the back.

Kinky much?

"We're going to prove Dr. Deaton isn't the alpha, just wait here," Scott demands as he heads towards the front of the school, Stiles trailing behind. They finally find their destination, the main office, and Stiles turns on the school's PA system and places the microphone in front of her best friend.

"Here I go," Scott says with the bare minimum of confidence. He then proceeds to make the most pathetic noise that Stiles hadn't heard since Scott went those voice changes. She buries her head in her hands and waits out the embarrassment she feels on behalf of her best friend. Stiles swears she can feel Derek roll his eyes from here.

When it finally ends, she tells Scott what is probably a bunch of bullshit, but he doesn't have to know that. It might work though; she did research it for a few hours.

The second time Scott howls, it is a legitimate wolf howl, leaving her genuinely impressed. Derek, not so much.

"Are you stupid?!" he growls out, like an actual growl, as they come back outside.

"Hey, I think it'll work!" Scott defended. Stiles couldn't resist adding, "And it was awesome!"

Within the next few seconds, the night completely goes downhill.

Dr. Deaton goes missing.

Derek seems pretty much dead, seeing as how the alpha stuck its hand into his damn back and threw him away like a rag doll.

They run for their damn lives. They throw open the main doors and shut them fast, only to realize they have nothing to lock the doors with. Stiles takes a quick look outside and doesn't see the big ass werewolf anywhere. What she does see though, are the bolt cutters they used to break into the school, perfect to be used as a good enough lock to keep the monster out.

"I'm going to get them," she tells Scott after she points them out.

"Stiles," he hisses, but she's already flung the door open and sprinted outside towards the bolt cutters. She leans down to pick them up, only to freeze when she feels eyes boring into her skin. She looks up to see the menacing alpha looking right at her.

She runs for her life again, only this time, the alpha is a lot closer to her than she wants it to be. She scrambles into the school quickly before jamming the bolt cutters down onto the push handles on the door.

Nothing happens. She looks out and sees nothing, just like when she had been getting the bolt cutters. She turns towards Scott, who just looks at her in return.

They are going to die.

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The rest of the night passes in a rush of adrenalin, fear, and confusion. Especially when Allison, Lydia, and Jackson all show up. They try calling the police, but apparently someone warned them of kids prank calling about break ins to the school and not to call again.

That's when they turn to her to call her dad.

She can't. She can't get him involved in this. But they were all going to die, and her dad couldn't handle her dying either. She was terrified, and everyone was putting so much pressure on her that when Jackson tries to take initiative to call her dad, she punches him in the face. She is not sorry.

Also, they end up blaming everything on poor, dead Derek, who is dead, and holy shit why is this even sinking in now of all times? Now is really not the best time for a panic attack.

Soon, Scott is going after the keys the dead janitor has on him (with a mixture of flammable liquid), and the rest of them are all trying not to hound her for questions, but they still kind of are.

So she ends up calling her dad. After that is a blur too, including some giant roar and the police finally coming to get them. She remembers looking at her car, that now has claw marks and is missing the battery, but she's so tired and her dad is practically carrying her to his squad car and asking questions at the same time. She doesn't know what she answers with, but it must have been enough because she's finally getting to sleep.

Her dad looks down at her with a confused frown. What was even going on here?

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Stiles is drunk. She is completely hammered with her completely sober, but not supposed to be, best friend. Words are spilling out of her mouth in a fast drunken slur, trying to comfort her now single best friend. Like everything else in her life, it doesn't work much.

Even in her drunken stupor, she realizes the men that approach her and take their beer are not people you really want to associate with, and she just tries to pull Scott and herself away. But Scott is agitated, and he actually intimidates them into giving them their alcohol back.

She doesn't remember much more after that.

The next day at school, though, makes her try to dredge up those memories, because Scott is way more aggressive than he usually is. But of course, her memory pretty shot to hell.

She somehow makes plans with Scott to help him through the full moon so that he doesn't go out and kill anyone. Stiles parts ways with Scott at the guy's locker room and heads straight to the fields, because ever since she got stuck on cheerleader duty, Coach had intimidated some actual boys into being managers for the team.

Stiles sits next to Lydia, who is having a quick chat with Jackson before he starts practice. Jackson inclines his head a bit as he notices her, and she sees it.

There is a bruise on Jackson's face, right where she punched him, and she does feel a bit sorry about that now. It's not like you can actually see the bruise, she just recognizes that his face is a bit shinier in the area where she remembers shoving her fist at.

Which makes her realize Jackson is wearing makeup, but she is getting off track here.

"Jackson?" He spares a glance at her as Lydia goes quiet. He doesn't say anything, which means Lydia must have told him to be a bit nicer to her.

"So, uh, sorry about your face." Honestly, that could have come out better. Which makes her start talking and explaining, and completely not making anything better. For some reason though, Jackson isn't really offended at all. He just lifts an eyebrow and snorts at her. All she thinks is that she must have made some tiny step forward towards being Jackson's friend. He then turns back to Lydia with a confused face, wanting to say something, but not, and jogs off when Coach calls him.

It turns out, Scott is very agitated. So agitated, that he ends up pulverizing the entire team; even Danny who was just standing in front of the goal. Then, it seemed that Jackson decided to ask whatever he wanted to ask Lydia right then, because it must have really been bothering him.

"Your lip gloss is smudged."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." And that throws Stiles through a loop, because Lydia Martin does not simply not notice her perfection has been slightly smudged. Also, she wonders why Scott looks so smug about it.

When it clicks in her mind, she is slightly perturbed. Allison hadn't broken up with Scott for that long, and Scott was still supposed to be head over heels in love with her, why is he making out with Lydia of all people?

It's a silent ride to Scott's house for both of them. Tonight is the full moon, and Stiles is not so sure this plan is going to work. Scott is supposed to have super strength, he could probably rip the handcuffs apart right now. This was their only choice, the only one they had on such a short notice.

At least Scott's mom was working the night shift tonight.

Soon, they're both inside and heading towards Scott's room, and she can feel the nerves bunching in her stomach. It was now or never.

Stiles somehow tricks Scott into sitting next to his radiator, and she quickly handcuffs his hand to it. Scott releases a low growl and looks up at her in anger.

"Get this off of me."

"No." She pretends that Scott isn't terrifying her right now.

They stare at each other, each unwavering in their convictions, not blinking or moving, and Stiles feels the nerves in her stomach get worse. She looks away first, turning on her heel and heading out into the hallway. Far enough away from Scott, but not too far.

Stiles slides down the wall, her dark brown curly hair coming a bit undone from its bun and falling onto her face. She hears Scott calling out to her, begging her, she can hear the desperate plea for her to let him go. Her hands clamp to her ears and she brings her knees up to her chest, and lets her head rest on her knees.

This was torture.

But it suddenly stops, and that is way too suspicious for her not to check up on.

All she sees are a pair of handcuffs, and an open window.

Stiles wants to cry, but like the best friend she is, she is going to look for Scott and hopefully find a way to keep him away from anyone he might want to eat.

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Stiles is still desperately looking, and it's been over an hour. She turns down another road lining the massive amount of woods, and she sees lights.

Police lights.

She pulls over quickly, because she sees the normal officers milling about everywhere, but she can't see her father. As Sheriff, he should be here, but she can't see him. Then suddenly there's a dead body being wheeled away, and air won't enter her lungs anymore.

She can't see her father, there is a dead body. She feels the beginnings of a panic attack, but she's desperately calling for her father until she starts feeling light headed.

But now she's being spun around, and she's scared she'll see some random officer giving her a look of pity, but it's her dad. It's her dad and she can suddenly breathe again.

"What are you doing here?" he asks her in aggravation, but she doesn't even care because she's giving him a bear hug and never letting go. He must understand, because he returns her hug, holds onto her tightly, and they just stay like that for a moment.

"I'll just go home then." Her dad nods to her, and she takes off for her jeep. Once inside, she just sits there until she sees her dad motion for her to get a move on.

She drives home, just hoping that Scott is doing okay on his own.

No one notices the two hunters staring after her in the shadows.

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Apparently, Derek isn't dead anymore, which is news to her. Seeing a guys getting lifted up by the claws gouging into his back while spitting up blood doesn't really scream 'Don't worry, I'll live'. Then again, he does have those unfair werewolf healing powers.

Back to the real topic though, Scott, and by extension Derek, need Allison's necklace. Scott can't just ask for it because they aren't even friends anymore, and Derek certainly isn't going to put forth a team effort for a necklace.

So it's up to her. Perfect.

She's about to sit down at their usual lunch table, when Jackson of all people invites her to sit with him. Jackson, who had earlier broken up with Lydia, and also hinted to Scott that he knew about werewolves. Stiles bit her lip and quickly scanned the cafeteria. She quickly located Scott, who nodded his head, and she took a seat next to Danny. They started up a polite conversation, and when Danny turned to get an opinion from Jackson, he wasn't even there anymore.

Stiles took that time to check up on Scott, so she excused herself, and headed back to where she knew Scott was sitting. Scott didn't notice her presence until she sat directly in front of him.

"Are you okay?"

"Jackson is trying to get to me. He knows I can hear him from wherever he is, and he's taunting me about taking away Allison and you." That makes her raise an eyebrow of her own. Jackson's threatening Scott with Allison… and her?

"Why me?"

"Probably because you're my best friend."

"I won't let him come between us." That seems to knock Scott out of the trance Jackson's putting him in, and he looks at her for a second before smiling. For a second, everything that happened before Scott got bit seemed to disappear, and it was just like old times. Just Stiles and Scott.

"I know." They both grinned at each other for a moment before Stiles reminded herself why she needed to talk to Scott today.

"So, about the necklace."

And everything comes crashing back into the present.

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When Stiles finally got home after the longest day of school, she was going to research werewolf control a little bit more, just to make sure Scott was going to be okay during the game.

Her first game that she would be cheerleading at.

Was it too late to fall into a well, or something?

So, now she had to go home, research a bit, go to Lydia's to get ready with the rest of the team, and then go to the game. Just thinking about it made her twitch, just a bit.

But for now, she was home, and she was going to forget her worries and do some research.

Stiles opened the door to her room and sat down at her desk immediately, not noticing the other presence in her room.

"Hey Stiles," she heard her dad call to her from down stairs.

"Hey da-Derek?" She turned around to answer her dad, only to finally notice Derek Hale was standing right next to her bed. The look he gave her was menacing as he pointed towards the door, reminding her that she had her dad to talk to as well as him. Yay.

She ran to her door and flung it open, shoved the top half of her body into the hallway, before closing the door as much as possible over her middle.

"What did you say?"

"I said 'Hey dad'. What brings you up here?"

Her dad looked a bit sheepish now, a happy grin on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I just wanted to say I'm proud of you, for finally getting to do your own thing, instead of having to help another team all the time, you know?"

"Yeah, I'm proud of me too," she says as she mentally wills her dad away so she can get Derek out of her room faster. How'd he get into her room anyways?

"Well, good luck, I'll be there tonight."

"Cool, see you then." Stiles watches as her father walks through the hall and back down the stairs, then releases the breath she was holding as she inches her way back into her room.

She closes the door just in time for Derek to push her up against it. By now, Stiles has been trained by both her father (in self-defense) and Lydia (in cheerleading), so her first instinct is to kick Derek Hale where the sun don't shine, with intense force.

Derek drops like a stone, and so does she. That was going to leave a bruise, just like when she had punched him in the face to help save him from the wolfsbane poison. Which she still hasn't been thanked for.

"You-" he starts, but she is having none of it today.

"Before you growl at me like you usually do, I'm going to ask you to get to the damn point, because honestly, I know that's what we both want. Also, this is your fault. You harassed me for no good reason and I reacted, it's what I do." Derek makes a face at her, like he wants to argue the point, before he growls out, "Fine, but don't tell-"

And she cuts him off again, because this is ridiculous. "You mean you don't want me to shout 'Hey Dad! Derek Hale's in my room… bring your gun'?" He grunts at her as they both get off of the floor and sit on her bed.

"Where did that text message come from?"

"Elaborate please," because who knows what the hell Derek is even talking about these days.

"The one that was apparently from Scott to Allison, the night the alpha attacked the school." Actually, she had completely forgotten about it after they had all met up, and then started being hunted, but that was a good question.

"I don't know, but I can find out." A quick text and 15 minutes later has Danny by her side at the computer, arguing over his criminal record. He sighs when she mentions it and changes the subject to Derek, who is in the opposite corner of her room reading a dictionary.

"Who is that?" he asks, and holy shit Stiles hadn't even noticed that Derek was still there.

"That's my cousin, Miguel." It rolls off of her tongue before she even thinks about it, and now Derek is looking at her like she's lost her marbles. She probably has at some point during this whole misadventure.

"Is that blood on his shirt?" She takes her first real look towards Derek's chest, and there is said blood, flashing it's obviousness to anyone who cares to look. Anyone like Danny. And now she has a plan.

"He does, but I told him he could borrow one of Scott's shirts. Isn't that right, Miguel?" Stiles has never seen a more potent glare pointed in her direction, except maybe from Mr. Harris. He slams her dictionary closed and yanks his shirt off, his tattooed back flexing as he works his shirt off. Stiles does a little victory spin in her chair.

"This, no fit." He growls out, and Stiles wants to kick him again.

"Then find a different one," she bites out sweetly. Derek huffs, which puffs out his chest a little, and Stiles is probably enjoying this more than Danny. Not that she's really looking at Derek, or anything.

The second shirt he tries on is that one blue and orange striped shirt Scott left over at her house on purpose, and she fights down a laugh as he puts it on.

"What do you think of that shirt, Danny?"

"Those aren't really his colors," he says, and Stiles can hear the trap close.

"He's right, try on a different one." Derek practically rips the shirt off of himself and throws it to the floor, which Stiles thinks is slightly rude, before he tugs on another and pointedly sits down.

"So," she says as she turns towards Danny, and he starts tracking the message for her.

And it comes from Scott's mom's work computer. What. The. Hell.

She thanks Danny quickly enough, and he's on his way to the game. She should be going to Lydia's house right now, but…

"Why do I have to drive you there?"

"You know Scott's mom, so it would be less suspicious if you snoop through her things at her workplace." She can't really argue with that logic, but should she really miss this game?

Derek must be pretty good at scenting emotions, because he says, "Do it for Scott." Now she really wants to punch Derek in the face, but she is going to be a good best friend, and help Scott out, again.

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"Yeah dad, I already told Lydia I'd be a bit late. Don't wait up." That was all one big fat lie. She told Lydia she wasn't even coming, and now she was about to disappoint her dad.

"You're not going to make it."

"I know," she moans out, but she's doing this for Scott, for his well-being. The sooner they get rid of the alpha, the sooner things get back to normal.

"Oh, and one more thing," she turns to Derek to see what he wants, and suddenly her head has been smacked against her steering wheel.

"Holy shit, what was that for?"

"You know what that was for, now go. Go!" And she goes before he starts to abuse her even more. Can't he even be a little grateful she had gotten him this far? No, why would Mr. Brood want to be thankful for anything?

She's inside the hospital now, and her phone rings. "What, are you really this impatient?"

"Check my uncle's room. He's still technically part of the pack. Maybe the alpha has been there recently and left a clue."

"Geez, okay." She walks around to the instructed room, but there is no one in sight. No doctors, no nurses, no Uncle Hale. "Your uncle isn't even here." There is dead silence for a few seconds before Derek is screaming at her to get out of there.

"You have to get out, my uncle is the alpha!" She can't really say she even heard Derek yelling at her, because she sees him, with half his face burned, standing all on his own, looking at her with a maddening clarity in his eyes. Eyes that burn red.

"You must be Stiles," the alpha says. A shiver wracks down her spine and his grin widens. She turns with every intention of running, only to see a single nurse blocking the hallway, smirking at her. Stiles turns back to face Peter, then the nurse and back again, before making a painful discovery.

"Oh my God, I'm going to die." Sickening realization crosses her face, and Peter is getting closer to her. Suddenly, the nurse goes down, and Derek is standing in her place.

"Get out of the way," he growls at her. She shoots a look at the both of them before dropping to the ground. Derek doesn't hesitate to leap over her towards his uncle, barring sharp fangs and claws. She watches the tussle for only a few moments before she realizes that this would be a good time to run for her life. As she exits the hospital, she thinks for a split second that she should go back and somehow help Derek.

But what could she do that Derek couldn't? He was the creepy werewolf that could heal from near death situations in 24 hours. She would only get in the way.

With that last thought, she hops in her jeep, and just drives.

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Scott came over to her house in the morning, just after she had finished breakfast.

"Is there anything you need for me to look up, or something?" He gives her a guilty glance before saying, "Or something."

She sighs, but she really shouldn't even be surprised anymore.

"What now? What could it possibly be today?"

Today was apparently save 'Jackson from Hunters' day.

Scott had told her that he'd had a bad feeling about something, and she had mocked him about his werewolf senses, but drove him where he wanted to go anyways. What do they eventually find? Allison's father looking far too pleased with himself than he usually is, and clearly intimidating Jackson from the looks of it.

Stiles can feel Scott's indecision, having to choose between letting Mr. Argent take care of a problem for him, or do the right thing. Sighing, she got into the turn lane, making the decision for him. She pulled into the parking lot, right next to Jackson's douche car, and got out to 'even the playing field' with Scott, as they stood on either side of Jackson.

Jackson, of course, wanted almost nothing to do with them (or was it Scott, he had been nicer to her after all), but didn't want to be with one of the scariest hunters alive. Just as they were convincing Jackson to get into Stiles 'crappy' jeep, Jackson's Porsche started to 'magically' work again.

After Mr. Argent drove off, Jackson immediately flew off the handle.

"Turn me into a werewolf."

"Uh, what?" Scott asks, and this is where Stiles is grateful for being the human sidekick.

Until they start taking their conversation out on her car.

"Hey, can we leave my car out of it?" she asks as Scott goes for another blow to the front. Her hand is tugging at his bicep, but Scott tugs back like he really wants to hit her jeep instead of Jackson's face. It probably had something to do with his werewolf strength that made him hold back, but why her jeep?

Then Scott start yelling about how awful being a werewolf is with the lack of control and the people trying to constantly kill you, but Jackson is so full of himself that he thinks he can just overcome everything.

"It's because you're weak," Jackson hisses at Scott. "You have all of the power in the world, but you don't know what do with it. At least I would put them to good use." Stiles checks her watch, because they have been having this argument for 45 minutes and she just wants to go home, and finally Jackson just turns around and stalks off. Just before he gets in his car, he throws a 'Bye Stiles' out and just drives away.

She watches Jackson drive away with a raised eyebrow. Scott lets out a gruff noise of some sort and climbs back in her jeep moodily, watching her as she walks around the car to hop into the driver's seat.

"Do you just want to go home or...?"

"Come home with me." She doesn't question him, she just goes.

They arrive at Scott's house in no time. They ignore the usual emptiness and head straight up to Scott's room. From there, Scott takes her hand, drags her to his bed, and just cuddles up to her. Like a puppy.

"What's this about?" she mumbles from the mattress, because her face is squished tightly against it.

"Jackson's trying to piss me off, using you. I'm scenting you so he'll back off."

"He's not a werewolf yet, you know."

"Don't care," he mutters under his breath, tightening his grip and burying his nose into her neck. They fall asleep like that, cuddled against each other, until Scott's mother comes home and wakes them up for dinner. She leaves soon after, wanting to check up on her dad, who she hopes is sleeping at home.

Of course, her dad is home, wide awake, drinking, and looking over case files. Guilt washes over her in waves, but she has to find out how the investigation is going.

"Can you get me a shot of whiskey?" he asks her. She nods in an affirmative before getting a regular sized glass and filling it to the brim. She can truthfully say she is going to hell.

"What have you found so far?" He gives her a look, clearly asking her what the hell she thought she was doing. She looked away, a blush coloring her cheeks, before picking up a picture of a familiar person.

"Is this Derek?" Her father looked over at the photo she was holding and nodded, then picked up his drink and took a swig. Stiles filled it right back to the brim again. "What happened to his picture?" she asked, gesturing to the bright spots covering his face from view.

"Every picture we took of him came out like that. I don't even understand." Stiles nodded her head before pulling out a chair and sitting next to her father at the table. She looked over a few more randomly strewn papers before asking, "What do these people even have in common?"

"The Hale fire," her father's immediate response is, and wow that alcohol works fast.

"How?"

"The bus driver was filed for fraud over the Hale fire and the video store clerk and those two other guys were suspected arsonists." Stiles' eyes widened in realization. The alpha was going after those people for revenge. She throws a 'thanks' over her shoulder as she prepares to leave, but her father's words stop her.

"You remind me of her, you know?" Stiles freezes, because there is no way her dad is even talking about who she thinks he's talking about.

"Your eyes, your loud personality, your hair. You even smell like her sometimes." But he is talking about her, that one woman they never talk about. Stiles' father goes to fill up his glass again, but Stiles takes the Whiskey out of his hands.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, but her father isn't letting her drown in her own self-pity, because now they're hugging.

"It wasn't your fault," he whispers back to her. She nods her head in understanding, but she mentally disagrees with her father. They hug for a little while longer, until Stiles convinces her dad to go to the sleep for the night.

She picks back up on her research.

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Stiles doesn't get very far, because Scott calls her and tells her to run into a car with his mom in it.

She is sad to say that is probably the least ridiculous thing she has heard in a couple of months. But she still has to ask.

"Why am I doing this for you?"

"Because my mom is going on a date with the alpha!" Well damn. So did that mean that Derek…?

She swallows the bile that rises and focuses at the problem at hand.

"What does he want with your mom? Is he going to turn her or what?" A strangled noise comes over the phone, and she knows that Scott has been trying not to think about the possibilities.

"Well, my dad is asleep, so I can help. Where are they?"

It turns out they're parked off to the side. She can't see what they are discussing, but she can see Scott's mom pressing herself against the passenger door. Stiles hits the gas.

Scott's mom looks pissed when she climbs out of the car, but Stiles can see the underlying relief in her face. Peter gets out too, and gives her a quick once over before just walking around the front of his car, mumbling to either himself, or Scott. Well, doesn't his face look a little less scarred than it should be?

Stiles is broken out of her bearings by Scott's mom asking if she's okay.

"Oh yeah, I'm totally fine. Except I'm totally sorry about ruining your date, with that guy over there. Sorry about that again. And for hitting his car. Defiantly sorry about that. It was really nice." Melissa rolls her eyes at her, and Stiles gives her a nervous grin in return.

"Go home and sleep, Stiles."

"Yes ma'am."

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It's finally the weekend, and Stiles sleeps in for the first time in weeks. All of the stress, lies, and guilt have built up to the point where her body just needed her to just sleep.

But apparently she isn't the only one under pressure. Her dad comes home for a quick lunch before going back out to patrol and tells her how he pulled Allison over for speeding. Allison promptly lost her grip on her emotions and started crying, then demanded that the Sherriff give her a ticket.

"I'll text her later to check up on her. It's probably the dance that has her so freaked out." That was defiantly a lie, but it would make sense to her dad.

"You should, she seemed kind of confused. Thanks for lunch, I'm heading out."

"Bye! Try not to make anyone else cry!" Her dad snorts and he closes the door.

When she pulled out her phone to text Allison, she saw that Allison had already texted her. About the dance. How coincidental.

Then she sees that it's about dress shopping. With her and Lydia. There are knots in her stomach and her leg is twitching. Should she? Could she really take the chance to look pretty for one night? To look like her? Stiles bites her bottom lip and goes into her bathroom.

She looks at herself in the mirror. Her curly brown hair is done up in its usual messy bun (She loved Stiles' hair, Stiles couldn't just cut it off, not matter how much it reminded Stiles of her). Her plain, but dotted face (She would always poke at her face, call her pretty), what would it look like with the slightest touch of make up? Her baggy clothes and now mostly ripped jeans, exchanged for a dress (She wore dresses all the time, she was always so pretty)?

Stiles finally decides that she shouldn't waste this chance. Lydia and Allison were going to be there for her, helping her look nice for the first time since her. And maybe she would have more confidence to do more things, such as this, when the time was allotted. She sends Allison the okay.

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Macy's, Stiles learns, is scary. There are workers who like to randomly ambush you and spray their perfumes on you. Others pop out of thin air to ask you if you need assistance, giving you tiny heart attacks. They're all so chipper and well dressed and crazy that Stiles just wants to turn around and leave.

Lydia, though, is having none of it. She clamps her hand around Stiles wrist and tugs her over to the prom dress section they have set up of this time of year, abandoning Allison to look on her own. Dresses are being shoved into her arms and she doesn't even know if these are for Lydia, or for her.

She hopes at least some of these are for Lydia to try on, because if they aren't, Stiles will die on the inside. Suddenly her chin is being grabbed, and she is looking Lydia straight in the eyes.

"Your eyes are a really pretty brown," Lydia tells her, and Stiles is momentarily stunned. She was just complemented by Lydia Martin. Lydia Martin. Who is perfect in every way. A blush lights up her face and she looks off to the side, pretending to look at the other dresses in the store.

"Well, I think that's enough for now. Let's go try them on." And that's all the warning Stiles gets before she's shoved in a try on room with half of the dresses they picked out. "When you try one on, come out here to show me too." Lydia gets a groan in response.

Before Stiles can take her clothes off though, her phone goes off.

"Hello?"

"Hey Stiles, have you seen my cell anywhere?"

"Scott? Whose phone are you using right now?"

"Dr. Deaton's. Anyways, have you seen it?"

"Nope, can't say that I have." An annoyed groan escapes Scott's lips and makes Stiles raise an eyebrow.

"What's going on?"

"I can't go to the dance and now I can't find my phone anywhere!"

"Did you really let your grades slip that much?"

"Apparently, yeah."

"Bummer. I even came with Lydia and Allison to get a dress for winter formal." A pause comes over the phone as Stiles' statement sinks into Scott's brain.

"You're getting a dress? I thought you would-,"

"Please Scott, don't make me chicken out here." Lydia must have gotten tired of waiting because she opens the door, without even knocking, takes the phone out of Stiles' hand and says, "Sorry Scott, this is an important girl day and you will have to take up this conversation at another time. Bye!" Lydia hangs up, not letting Scott get a word in for himself, tucks the phone into her own pocket, and walks right back out.

Stiles just stands there, staring at the door and holding the space where her phone used to be.

"I don't hear you getting dressed in there!" Lydia calls out sweetly from the other side of the door. That gets Stiles to start ripping off her clothes like they were on fire, not wanting Lydia to come in herself to 'help'.

They go through ten dresses before settling on a red spaghetti strap dress with a black bow around the waist.

Then she has to help Lydia with her dress choice, and it's the same thing all over again, except she's on the other side of the door and Lydia has significantly less dresses to try on. She tries on three before she's satisfied with a strapless silver dress.

They find Allison with her own strapless silver dress, looking a little confused and uncomfortable, but when Stiles asks, she insists that she's fine.

Allison drops Stiles and Lydia off at Lydia's house, where they had met up beforehand.

"See you at the dance," Allison says as she drives off, leaving Stiles to Lydia's mercy. Not that Stiles knew that.

"Come on, let's go up to my room and see what we can do." Stiles just nodded her head. Suddenly, Lydia grabs her arm and drags Stiles into her house, up the stairs and into Lydia's room.

"Sit here and don't move." Stiles obeys, and watches from Lydia's vanity mirror bench as Lydia gathers up beauty supplies and puts them on the stand next to Stiles.

"Let's start with that hair of yours." A shiver works its way down Stiles' spine as Lydia gives her a positively evil smile. The next few hours are filled with the scariest memories Stiles has bothered to remember. And she hangs out with werewolves.

Lydia does her own make up in a fraction of the time it took Lydia to do Stiles', and Stiles tries to not be astonished. When Lydia is done, she gives Stiles the dress they picked out earlier and tells her to go put it on in the bathroom.

"If you need any help, don't be afraid to ask," Lydia says as she closes the door. Stiles huffs, and starts stripping down for the millionth time that day, being mindful of her hair and face, and instinctively looks in the mirror.

She freezes. It's all she can do at this point, because ever since the day she died, since her mother died, she hadn't tried to look nice for anyone since then. The similarities to her are enormous, even though she had never seen her with straight hair, Stiles knows she would have looked just like this.

Tears are forming in her eyes now, air is refusing to go into her lungs, and she's trying so hard not to have a panic attack right now. Her hands grip the counter, her legs too weak to hold her up, and she leans over the sink, the feeling of bile coming up her throat getting stronger.

Lydia was either really impatient, or Stiles must have made a lot of noise, because Lydia is rushing in and telling her to breathe. She holds Stiles and Stiles holds Lydia back, and suddenly she can breathe again. Lydia lowers both of them to the floor until she is sure that they can both handle standing on their own again.

"There, there. It's okay. You're okay. Just breathe. Breathe," Lydia murmurs into her ear as she rubs Stiles' back. Stiles takes a deep breath before looking up at her friend, and she can see the worry in Lydia's green eyes.

"Are you okay? Are you sure you want to go?"

"Yes and yes," she says with as much confidence as she can muster right now.

"I don't want you pushing yourself into doing something you really don't want to do."

"But I do want to do this," she says. "I, for some weird, obscure reason, want to go to this dance and just be pretty and not Stiles for one day. For just one day, I want to be the girl, the daughter that my mother left behind." And with that, she and Lydia stand up and start to get ready again, like nothing had happened.

Lydia did have to touch up Stiles' make up before they left though.

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Stiles drives them to the dance in her jeep. They go inside together, arm in arm, and manage to shock everyone they pass. Some of them were talking about Lydia, but most of them were talking about the girl with straightened brown hair in a ponytail, beautiful made over face with cute moles, in a red dress with a black bow around her waist, and black heels.

They even pass by Jackson and Allison on their way in. Jackson looks shocked, and Allison looks impressed.

"You look good, Stiles," which makes Jackson's face go from shock to 'holy-shit-what' as he trips, but manages not to fall. She smiles at both of them and continues her way into the gym. Lydia and her dance together, soon joined by Allison after Jackson abandoned her to be at the punch table.

Then, out of nowhere, Scott shows up and steals Allison away.

"I thought Scott wasn't allowed to come to the dance?" Lydia asked Stiles.

"I thought so too." And sure enough, Coach sees Scott and gives chase yelling like a maniac, until he catches up with Scott while he dances with Danny. An uncomfortable silence ensues.

"No, no," Coach Finstock yells out as everyone looks over at the scene. "It's not like that! I was- he is supposed- I mean, everyone, let the dance continue!" Coach walks away, probably planning Scott's funeral.

"Nice cover up, Cupcake," she whispers to herself as the music starts back up. Lydia, however, was looking around the gym wildly.

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't see Jackson anywhere. I'm going to go look for him." Stiles doesn't know how to respond to that, because Jackson broke up with Lydia, and even if she didn't acknowledge it, Lydia still loved him.

"Sure, go on, I'll be fine by myself." And Lydia walks out of the gym, a worried look on her face.

Stiles goes over to the snack table for the first time that evening and waits. And waits. And waits. So when she sees Jackson coming back into the gym by himself, she's a bit agitated. She makes her way through the crowd towards him.

"Where's Lydia?" She asks when she finally gets over to him.

"How would I know?" That scares Stiles, because this is starting to feel like something out of a horror movie. He sees the worry on her face, and guilt is starting to leak onto his. Stiles does not have the time to deal with Jackson's screw-ups and she hurries out of the gym. She looks around the school a bit, and then rushes outside to look for the strawberry blonde.

"Why are the lacrosse field lights on at a time like this?" she asks herself out loud. She faintly hears Lydia calling out for Jackson down there, and her worries increase.

Stiles gets down to the field as fast as her heels can carry her, because she thinks she can see Peter from where she is, his significantly healed face giving her a vicious grin from his spot on the field.

But it's really him on the other side of the lacrosse field, with Lydia in between them.

"Lydia, run!" She screams out desperately, but Peter is already there, ripping into her friend. Lydia drops to the ground, bleeding everywhere. Stiles forces herself to run faster, despite the fact she's in heels, and skids on her hands and knees when she reaches Lydia.

Peter is still there, leaning over Lydia and into her face (his face is bloody, Lydia's blood, she's bleeding), showing off pointy fangs.

"What are you doing?" She's trying to be calm, but it comes out slightly hysterical. Hearing her voice betray her makes her force down the tears. She won't cry in front of Peter. She can't.

She can't focus on that though, Lydia is bleeding out in front of her and she doesn't know how long Lydia can stay alive. Stiles doesn't know how to try to help, where to try and staunch the blood flow first, and Peter is still leaning over Lydia, just watching her panic.

"Please get off," she says, not wanting to anger or offend the werewolf who could easily end Lydia's life. He tilts his head at her, blood still running down his face. "Please, just take me instead, kill me instead, just let Lydia go."

"Now why would I do that?" he asks, vaguely amused. She looks up at him pleadingly. "Unless you can find my nephew?" Thoughts flood her mind. Where would Derek be? Various possibilities and lots of flashbacks to remember the past couple of days go by. It hits her like most of her revelations do.

"Scott's phone is missing. It has GPS." That gets Peter's attention. He's smart, Stiles observes, which is really bad for her.

He climbs to his feet and dusts himself off before offering her a hand. She stares at his hand uncomprehendingly. "Come now," he says, "you're going to help me."

"But, Lydia-"

"Please," he interrupts, "I've given her the bite. She'll either die, or become a werewolf."

"No," she says, because she refuses to leave Lydia like this, "let me get some help."

He waits for a few seconds as she texts Jackson, and when she's done, he offers his arm to her like he's some sort of gentleman, instead of a kidnapping, murdering, off-kilter werewolf alpha. She thinks about just walking away, when he gives her a look that promises death, and probably not hers. Stiles looks down at Lydia, who doesn't even look to be breathing, before turning back to Peter, taking his arm, and letting him guide her to wherever they were going.

They ended up going to her jeep. Peter 'graciously' allowed her to drive them to their destination, which was an empty car garage, next to the car she remembered ramming with her jeep not too long ago.

"Is this a bad time to apologize about hitting your car? Because I'm at least a little sorry about that."

"No you're not." Damn werewolf lie detectors. "Besides, this is my nurse's car." Stiles thinks back to that creepy woman who helped block her into that hallway with Peter and looks around the car garage as if she would pop out any moment. Where was she?

"Well, I don't know what you expect me to do," she says. "In order to track Scott's phone, I'd need Internet. I don't think there's any Internet here." Her voice bounces around the empty garage, echoing her point. Peter just smirks at her, going over to his own car and propping up the trunk.

"Shit," she said hoarsely, as she looked down at the familiar dead body of the nurse from the hospital. So that's where she went to. "Why would you even…?"

"I got better," he says as he pulls out a laptop and sets it on the now closed trunk. "Now, type."

Stiles types. She pulls up the correct website and just looks at the login screen. "So," she starts, "what are you going to do once you find Derek?"

Peter makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat and tells her, "Don't think, just type." But she can't, the possibilities are running through her head at an impossible pace.

"You're going to kill people, aren't you?"

"Only the responsible ones," Peter answers with a grin. Bile rises to her throat for the second time that night. She doesn't want to be involved in this, but she wants Scott to be involved in this even less.

"Listen," she says with as much courage as she can muster, "if I do this for you, promise you'll leave Scott out of this." She must sound pathetic, asking for promises from a werewolf who'd kill her in a heartbeat if she wasn't good for something.

Peter sounds vaguely annoyed as he explains about wolf packs, about how they need each other to be stronger.

"He won't help you."

"Of course he will, because it'll help Allison. And you will, because it will save Scott." The tears are threatening to spill down her face, because she knows it's true, just like Peter does. "You two are such good best friends, that you know his username and password." She wills down the tears, and starts typing in the username.

"His username is Allison?" he asks when she types it in. Stiles doesn't have the will to talk, she just types in his password. "His password is also Allison?" He sounds really agitated by now, but not at her anymore, just Scott's regular obliviousness. Something she is all too familiar with.

"Still want him in your pack?" she asks with a certainty in her voice that says 'he does this kind of shit way too often'. She turns to look at him, and he just turns away.

A few minutes later, the laptop dings, indicating that it's found Scott's phone. She's thoroughly confused.

"That's where they're keeping him? At his own house?" Peter looks confused for a split second, before understanding lights up his face.

"Not at it," he says like she should know better. "Under it. I know exactly where that is." This is good, because she wouldn't want to help him look through the woods and have to rescue Derek with him. Suddenly, a howl fills the empty air of the car garage. "And I'm not the only one."

Peter shuts down his laptop and places it in the back seat of his car instead of with the dead body. Another howl fills the garage.

"Give me your keys," Peter demands. She releases a sigh, because of course this guy wants to steal her car too.

"Be careful with her," she says as she hands off her keys. He grips them, before shifting them around in his hand, then bending them with brute strength and giving them back to her. Stiles eyes the twisted keys in her hand, before looking at Peter with a glare, because what the hell was that even for? He gives her a smug smirk before heading towards his car.

"So you're not going to kill me?" she asks before he can get into his car and drive away. He looks back at her, and she questions her decision to remind him of that option. He starts to walk towards her, and she inches away from him.

"Don't you get it?" he questions gently, which completely throws her off. "I'm not the bad guy here." Well he had defiantly fooled her. Murdering people, kidnapping her, hurting Lydia, biting Scott, he sounded like a pretty awful person to her. Werewolf. Whatever.

"You turn into a giant creature with red eyes, and rip people apart, and you aren't the bad guy here?"

"Look, I like you Stiles," which is something she could have lived the rest of her life without hearing, thank you very much. "Since you've helped me, I'm going to give you something in return." She hopes he can raise her mother from the dead, or something equally magical, because anything else would be an insult by this point.

"Do you want the bite?" All activity in her brain slows to a halt, because she's pretty sure Peter Hale, crazy werewolf, just offered to make her a werewolf like any regular person would offer a stick of gum.

All she manages to ask is, "What?"

"Do you want the bite?" Derek's uncle makes sure to enunciate each word, like a parent would to a child when they can't even comprehend the simplest of concepts. "If it doesn't kill you, and it could, you could become like us."

"A werewolf," she says, uncomprehendingly, because why would this guy even offer her something like that?

"Yes, a werewolf, would you like me to draw you a picture, spell it out for you perhaps?" Peter's clearly at the end of his rope, wanting her answer now rather than later. But she doesn't know what to say, how to respond. Peter sees her hesitation, and steps closer.

"That night, I bit Scott because I needed a new pack. That could have easily been you." And Stiles realizes for the first time how damn close she came to being in Scott's shoes. "You would be faster, stronger, more popular, and able to stand on your own two feet, instead of scorned and ignored. You and Scott, you would be equals, maybe you would be even more powerful than him." With that, Peter takes the initiative and grabs her wrist, bringing it up to the air next to his head.

"Yes or no?" Peter asks, and she takes a moment to just look at the man in front of her. Her heart hammers in her chest, blood rushing around her body, sweat dripping down her neck. Should she? Could she be helpful as a werewolf? Would she better as a werewolf? Less of a problem to others?

But…

What would her parents say?

Peter is done waiting. He think he knows what she wants, and bares his fangs, about to plunge them into the soft skin of her wrist, when she yanks her arm back.

It stuns both of them, momentarily. But she gets her wits together, and makes her stand for the first time tonight.

"I don't want to be like you."

"Do you know what I heard over what you said?" That was not what she was expecting for a response, but okay. "Your heart beating slightly faster over the words 'I don't want'." Silence reigns over them for a few second before Peter continues. "You may believe that you are telling me the truth, but you are lying to yourself." Her heartbeat pounds in her ears, not believing what Peter is telling her, because she likes being human, being normal. She does, she does.

"Goodbye Stiles," he finally says, and the garage is suddenly quiet, a deafening roar of silence where Peter's offer just was. He drives away, and she just watches, and waits for him to be far enough away.

That's when she breaks. She breaks into a million little pieces and cries. Stiles' knees give out and she's falling over and sobbing hysterically. The close calls, the murders, the blood and gore, the kidnapping are just too much to her. She's weak, and this proves it. She's always known, always known, but she thought things could get better. They haven't, and now she knows she's worthless.

It takes half an hour, but the tears eventually stop, leaving behind a massive headache. Using her jeep as support, she heaves herself up and leans against it, trying to figure out what she should do next.

Then she remembers.

"Lydia."

Stiles is very glad that she didn't lock her doors after she had parked, or this night would have been even worse, having to walk anywhere, especially to the hospital, in heels. She takes the sneakers she kept in the back for cheerleading practice, and takes the heels off, already feeling a bit better than she had been a few minutes ago.

"Here goes nothing," she says as she closes her car door and starts off towards the hospital.

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When she finally gets to the hospital, she isn't very surprised to see her dad there. He catches a quick glimpse of her over various hospital staff and makes his way over to her, but stops short when he sees her state. Stiles wonders what she looks like right now, after the night she's had. From her dad's expression, she must look like she climbed out of a dumpster that had fallen off of a cliff.

"What happened?" he asks her, the disbelief clear in his voice.

"I lost the keys to my jeep and I ran here as fast as I could." It's just her luck too, that her voice cracks, indicating she's been crying. She doesn't care about that though, she doesn't care about herself, Lydia is over there and Stiles needs to find out how she's doing. "Is she going to be okay?"

Her dad gives her a look that says she's the one that needs to be looked after in the hospital, but answers her question anyways.

"They don't know." The answer breaks another bit of her soul that she thought couldn't get any more broken. "Partially because they don't know what happened. She lost a lot of blood, but," and her dad pauses, thing through his next words, "there's something else going on with her."

"What do you mean?" She hopes, desperately hopes, that doesn't mean what she thinks it means.

"It's like she's having an allergic reaction. Her body keeps going into shock." Her dad sounds so confused, but those words are her guillotine. Peter's words swirl around in an endless fashion, driving her slowly mad. 'She'll either die, or become a werewolf'. She feels the blood rush out of her face, making her look sickly pale to anyone who looks at her. Like her dad.

"Did you see anything? Do you have any idea who or what attacked her?" Yes, she wants to scream. She wants to sit down and confess every single thing that has happened since her father discovered her in the woods looking for half a dead body with Scott. But she doesn't.

"No. No, I have no idea."

"What about Scott?" Where did Scott fit into any of this?

"What about Scott?"

"Did he see anything?" Couldn't he ask Scott himself? Unless…

"Is he not here?" She's panicking now, because if Scott's not here, then Peter could…

"I been trying to call him on his cell phone and I haven't gotten a response." Her mind is going crazy with possibilities and scenarios. She glances towards Lydia's room again, and sees Jackson, who seemed to be eavesdropping on their conversation. He mouth's an 'I don't know' to her, and she turns back to her father with dread in her voice as she says, "You're not going to get one."

Before her father can ask her more questions for her to answer with lies, she flees to the girl's bathroom. One look in the mirror reveals how much four hours has changed her. She went to the dance looking like a younger version of her, now Stiles' hair is falling out of its ponytail, either falling limply or matted to the side of her face with her sweat. Make up trails down her face from her break down in the car garage and her face is still a bit red, and her eyes a little puffy. The dress Lydia bought her is a bit ripped up and covered in mud and if you look close enough, Lydia's blood. Her arms are a bit scratched up as well as her knees from when she skidded across the lacrosse field to get to her fallen friend. Her legs are also covered in mud, and various scrapes and bruises. Her feet hurt a lot, from the running in heels, standing in heels, then running in sneakers all the way to the hospital.

She's a complete mess. She's worse than Stiles usually is. And her being Stiles is usually bad enough. There's a distinction she makes, between the girl she was before she died that had her real name, and the girl she became after she died and created Stiles. When Stiles looks in the mirror, that dirty, broken girl that looks back at her is a complete stranger.

Stiles can't look at herself anymore, but she doesn't cry this time. She sucks in a breath, lets it out, then calmly and numbly cleans herself off. Five minutes later, she leaves the bathroom to go find her father again.

It figures that he's waiting out there for her, so when she walks up to him, he says, "Why don't you just sit down and wait with your friends?"

"No," she says, somehow having some energy left to argue with her father, "you know this has something to do with Derek." Her father looks confused for a second, before asking, "Wait, I thought you barely knew him?" And Stiles must be all about digging her own grave today, because she could have worded that better.

"Alright, so we might know him a little better than that," she confesses. Her father's face goes from confusion to anger in a split second.

"You do realize that I'm elected to this job, right?" he asks her, because she knows that he knows that she knows that answer.

"And," she cuts in before he can go on, "if I figure this out, then you'll be reelected, right?" Her dad looks around the hospital, probably trying to find something that actually makes sense.

"That girl in there has nothing to do with a six year old arson case." This certainly gets her attention.

"When did that officially become an arson?"

"We got a key witness," her dad begins, and she opens her mouth to ask who, but he cuts in again saying, "And no, I'm not going to tell you who it is. But, yeah, we know it's an arson. Probably started by a young woman." This, this is what she's been waiting for, because the pieces are starting to fall into place.

"Is she still young now?"

"She's probably in her late twenties," her dad tells her as his cell phone goes off. "I've got to take this."

"So, you don't know who it is?"

"No Stiles!" She knows she's annoying her dad, but this is important. "All we know is that she was wearing a pendent."

"As in a necklace, pendent?"

"Yes Stiles," her dad says as he turns around and heads back down the hall to answer his call. She thinks over this information. A woman in her late twenties who would hate the Hales. It would probably be a hunter, maybe with a few screws loose, since that fire was against their code. Allison's dad was out and so was Allison. Allison's mom was in her late thirties, so that ruled her out too. She vaguely remembers Allison telling her she got that pendent from her aunt. Who was in her late twenties and had a few screws loose enough to break the code, and holy shit, she actually figured this out!

She rushes back to the elevator she took to get to the hospital level she's on, and passes Jackson on the way, who takes it upon himself to try and 'help' her.

"Where are you going?"

"To find Scott," she says as she navigates the hospital hallways with practiced skill. She's been here way too many times to be healthy.

"You don't have a car."

"I'm aware of that, thank you," she grinds out, walking a bit faster, despite her aching feet. He catches up quickly and pulls her to a stop as he turns her towards him.

"Hey, I'll drive; just let me do this alright?" She looks at his face for any deception, before sighing and nodding her head in acceptance.

"Hey, did you bring the Porsche?" she asks suddenly. He nods his head as he brings his car keys out. Stiles snatches them from his hands saying, "Good, I'll drive then." She turns to lead them out, but nearly bumps into Chris Argent instead.

"Sir, ma'am," he starts, "I was wondering if you could tell me where Scott McCall is." Well, could this night get any worse?

"Scott McCall?" she asks like they hadn't been best friends for years. "I haven't seen him since the dance." He nods at her and looks at Jackson expectantly. She turns to Jackson as well and asks, "Have you seen Scott lately, Jackson?"

"I, uh, um," he manages to get out. Stiles would punch Jackson in the face if Allison's dad wasn't right there.

"Oh for the love of God." She is taking a long ass vacation when this was over. Then she was going to come back and punch a lot of people in the face for making her suffer through this shit.

Chris signals the lackey's behind him, and they step up and take Jackson and her roughly by the arms and drag them to a secluded hospital room. From there, they shove them in and barricade the door with their own bodies and lock the door.

"Let's try this again," he says patiently, but the anger shows through. They adjust their bodies on the hospital bed they landed on together, and turn to Chris, who looks severely annoyed with them. "Where is Scott McCall?"

Let it be known that Chris Argent has no qualms with beating information out of a teenage girl who is friends with his daughter. He is actually very good at it. But he doesn't know that she has the upper hand here, the ace up her sleeve. She's going to let him believe he has control of the situation for a few more minutes.

"Let me ask you a question Stiles," he says as he pins her to the locked door, his hands squeezing her arms, where she knows bruises will be for the next week or so. "Have you ever seen a rabid dog?"

"Nope," she says jovially, "but I can put it on my to-do list when you let me and Jackson go."

"Well I have," he tells her, pain reflected in his eyes. She looks over at Jackson, who is being held back by a lackey, looking at her like he wants to save her. But she's going to save both of them. She puts confidence in her look towards Jackson before turning back to Chris. "And the only thing I've ever been able to compare it to is seeing a friend of mine turning on a full moon. Do you want to know what happened?" Stiles can take a wild guess, and even though she hopes she's wrong, she knows she's right.

"No, not really. No offense to your shit story telling skills."

"He tried to kill me," he tells her anyways. "And I was forced to put a bullet through his head." To emphasize his point, he pokes her right in the middle of her forehead. But he's not done yet. "The whole while he lay there dying, he was still trying to claw his way towards me to try and kill me. Like it was the most important thing he could do with his last breath. Can you imagine that?" Considering Scott had tried to kill her before in the boy's locker room, she kind of can. But that was different, way different.

She shakes her head and replies, "No. It sounds like you need to be a little more-," But Chris is done being patient for today, he slams her into the door again and yells, "Has Scott ever tried to kill you on the full moon? Did you have to lock him up?"

"Yeah, I did," she says with certainty, and Jackson is looking at her with concern. She continues. "I had to handcuff him to a radiator, why?" She asks sarcastically. "Would you rather I lock him in the basement and burn the whole house down?" she yells right back at him.

He looks smug though, and she knows she won. Stiles just has to inform him now.

"I hate to dispel a popular rumor, Stiles, but we never did that." It's her turn to look smug now.

"Oh right," she says, "Derek told us you had a code. I guess no one ever breaks it."

"Never."

"What if someone does?" That changes Chris' demeanor real fast.

"Someone like who?" But Stiles can tell that he already knows.

"Your sister." Chris doesn't blink or flinch, because he was expecting that answer. He lets her go and backs away from her, signaling to the lackeys to let Jackson go too.

"Pleasure doing business with you, boys," she calls out as she unlocks the door, and drags Jackson out into the hallway. He breaks out of her hold, then holds onto her arm instead as he leads her to his car, not wanting her to get anymore hurt than she already had.

"I'm still driving," she tells him plainly. He lets out a small sigh and gets into the passenger seat anyways.

She gets an idea by the time she starts up the engine.

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the school first, then to Derek's house." Jackson stiffens beside her, and she pauses to look at him. "Are you sure you want to come?"

"Of course! Why are we going to the school first?"

"If we're going to fight the alpha, we might want some weapons first." The drive is mostly silent after that, both of them lost in their own thoughts. The school's gate is still open, and they sneak inside easily. She stops at the first science room she comes across and starts to lay out ingredients.

"Can I help at all?"

"I would rather you didn't," she said, finishing the first bottle of self-igniting liquid. She is soon finished with the second and they head out of the school again.

"Hold these, and make sure they don't break until we need them to, or we could die." It's sad how calm she is about this situation.

"How often do you do this?" Jackson asks, mildly horrified.

"Way too much," she replies as she steps on the gas. It takes her longer than she wants to get to the Hale house, but once they do, they see Scott tossing the Alpha aside, Chris down for the count, and Allison standing off to the side. The alpha is about to charge at Scott, until she honks the horn to get its attention.

She rushes out of the car, with Jackson on her tail. He hands her the self-igniting chemicals and she throws it spot on at the werewolf. It's too bad he catches it though. She says a quick prayer to whoever was listening at the moment, but Scott's tossing Allison her bow, and she's aiming at the chemicals. Suddenly, the beast is on fire.

Jackson takes that as his cue to throw his own bottle, catching Peter in the chest, setting him ablaze. Peter roars, and it's terrifying. He looks straight at Allison, and tries to make a go for her, but Scott is there, beating Peter away from his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, Allison.

Peter falls to the forest floor, flames still there, but those were dying like he was. He transforms back into his human form, his very naked human form, flesh and hair burnt away. He just stares at himself, like he can't believe it happened to him for the second time. Then he makes a strangled noise before falling over, hopefully for the last time. Scott goes over to check on Allison, leaving Stiles and Jackson standing there awkwardly, as they watch them confess to each other and see Chris get up.

They all hear leaves crunching though, and they turn to see Derek Hale walking over to his burnt uncle. Derek gets a foot on either side before leaning down. She sees Scott out of the corner of her eyes get up from his own crouched position.

"Wait!" her best friend yells out. "You said that the cure comes from the one who bit you." Scott is breathing heavily now, Allison is looking a bit hopeful, and she can feel Jackson's hand slide into hers. She looks up at him, and he shakes his head sheepishly, but doesn't remove his hand from hers. She lets it stay there as long as it's there platonically.

"Derek, if you do this, I'm dead," Scott pleads. Stiles is looking away, though. She knows how this is going to end. She feels Jackson grip get tighter, and knows she isn't the only one. "Her father, her family, what am I supposed to do?"

Faintly, she hears the one voice she never wants to hear again. "You've already decided. I can smell it on you!" Peter growls out at his nephew. She hears the sound of claws ripping through flesh, and Scott's mortified yells, to know it has come to pass. Derek killed his uncle.

The sudden tension in the air in strangling. Her hand squeezes Jackson's for comfort as Derek lifts himself off of his dead uncle. Stiles watches as Derek turns around, with his eyes newly red. His words ring out across the clearing.

"I'm the alpha now."

They disperse quickly enough after Chris called the cops. She hands the car keys back to Jackson and manages to convince him to drive her and Scott back to the hospital. He drops them off, and they sneak up to Lydia's room, not looking too out of place since they had been seen together in the hospital so much since they were young.

They duck under the window as soon as they're in and shut the door behind them. It turns out to be horribly creaky and not stealthy in any way. They get up to the bed, leaning over Lydia, and looking over their shoulders to make sure they won't get caught, and draw back Lydia's covers.

Stiles thinks the worst part about it is that Lydia probably won't wake up no matter how much they poke and prod her. But now Scott is peeling off the bandage, and she can't look, she can't see what she's turned Lydia into.

"Is it completely healed?" she asks after Scott stops taking off the bandage.

"No," he says, sounding perplexed.

"But, the doctor said she would be fine."

"The bite's not healing like it did with me. Which means she's not a werewolf." Stiles is so relieved by that news that she could cry for the third time that night. Her thoughts catch up to her happiness, leaving only cold logic behind.

"Then what the hell is she?"