Chapter 1 - New Girl

Lydia. That's all Stiles could think about as he sat in Coach Finstock's homeroom the morning after Jackson rose from his lizard-like death and went all wolfy on them. Kanimas don't get the girl. Dorky humans obviously don't get the girl. But werewolves – they're apparently a huge turn on for girls. Friggin' Twilight. No, wait, that guy only got a creepy baby. OK, friggin' True Blood.

Stiles had had a crush on Lydia Martin since third grade and for years he survived her utter lack of knowledge of his existence by keeping up the lie that if only she knew him, she'd fall madly, deeply in love with him. But this…this getting closer to her, interpreting her every action as a sign of interest, getting his hopes up only to have them crushed by the reality that she still preferred the guy who treated her like garbage. This sucked 1000x worse.

Scott wanted them to keep busy – practice lacrosse, hang out, and just do everything possible to not think about Lydia and Allison. Easy for him to say. Scott and Allison would be together again. Once she got over the fact that dear old granddaddy had tricked her into becoming a mad killing machine. Stiles knew he was never, ever getting together with Lydia Martin. *God* He couldn't even say "back together." At least Taylor Swift had relationships to sing about, messed up as they were. Wait, wasn't one of her relationships with that werewolf dude from Twilight? There's a pattern there.

Screw lacrosse. Screw hanging out and pretending to have fun so he didn't bring Scott down. He needed time to wallow alone. He'd skip lacrosse. He was so far down the team totem pole, Coach Finstock wouldn't even notice he was missing. And he'd go the library at lunch, tell Scott he had a project or something. OK, so Scott wouldn't believe that. Maybe he'd –

"Stilinski!"

Stiles' head shot up. He couldn't have missed a question. It was only homeroom. A girl in ripped jeans and a black leather jacket that was three sizes too large stood next to Coach Finstock, blonde hair hiding her face as she faced the teacher.

Finstock addressed the girl, "Stilinski will be happy to show you around today. But don't keep him after school – our newest lacrosse star can't miss practice. The coach gave a grin that was more like a grimace as he waved the girl to a seat on the other side of the classroom.

Dragging his hand down his face, Stiles sunk low in his seat. He couldn't skip lacrosse. And now he was supposed to be the friggin' Welcome Wagon for some new girl. Yay. Let's all get our happy on.

The bell rang and Stiles hurried to escape the classroom. But his conscience had him pause in the hall, reluctantly waiting for his one person tour group. She emerged a minute later, weighed down with what looked like textbooks for every one of her classes. With her hair out of her face, Stiles got his first real look at her. Her piercing blue-green eyes contradicted the innocent smattering of freckles across her cheeks. The combination was stunning, if he'd been into blondes, rather than redheads, that is.

"Do you need some help with those?" Stiles reached out a hand, shakily.

The girl stepped back, holding her textbooks tighter. "I'm fine," she snapped , walking away. Ah, now that attitude he recognized, whether it came from a blonde or a redhead.

Stiles shook it off. Whatever. He kept pace with her. "So this is the main hall. And these are the lockers. They're a hideous orange on purpose so we don't linger. These are classrooms." It took Stiles another few seconds of less-than-scintillating color commentary to realize the girl had stopped walking. He jogged back to her.

She sighed. "I'm sure you'd rather be hanging out with your lacrosse buddies than babysitting the new girl. I'll be fine with the school map they gave me at the office."

Relief washed over Stiles. For once he was glad girls hated spending time with him. "OK, great, I'll see you around then."

The girl hadn't made it too far down the hall when Stiles felt a sharp thwap to back of his head. He spun around to see Scott glaring at him. "What the Hell was that for?"

"Dude, you totally blew off the new girl. Who, by the way, you're supposed to be showing around."

"How did you know I was supposed to…?" Then Stiles remembered. "Since you've been using your pointy ears for evil, you must have also heard that she's the one who blew me off. She doesn't need me to babysit her, she has a map."

"A map?"

Stiles spoke more slowly. "Yes, those paper things people used before GPS's were invented. And that we're all going to have to start using again now that Apple screwed up the iPhone."

Scott rolled his eyes. "So she has that same map we got in grade 9? The one that's a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a hand drawing done by an illiterate drunken janitor before the east wing was added to the school. There are probably 300 year old treasure maps that are easier to read than that thing."

Stiles' shoulders dropped. He was going to have to put on his happy face after all.