A/N: Rated M for language. Slight trigger warnings for mentions of abuse.

So I'm aware that this story is technically a crossover with Teen Wolf. But I'm not blending the storylines or anything, not really. Just shamelessly borrowing characters to use for my own selfish purposes. All the Teen Wolf people are totally human, btw. No supernatural stuff going on here. Also, the M rating is mostly for language but I might up liven it up later. Idk, lemme know if I should. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

I.

When Rachael was ten, her father took her to a formal dinner for his University where he taught as an English professor. All of his colleagues cooed over her in her adorable pink dress and her carefully braided brunette hair. They listened indulgently to her cheerful discussions on whichever book her father was teaching his class that particular semester, smiling when she mispronounced author's names or confused the book titles.

They laughed when she convinced the Dean to dance with her after the food was gone and were impressed when the ten-year old even managed a half-way decent waltz. All of the staff at her father's University loved little Rachael with her sparkling navy eyes, her grown-up attitude and infectious laugh. The dinners where her father brought her along were always their favorite. They always told her father to bring her to the next dinner or event and he always obliged.

When Rachael got home a few hours later, her father pushed her down and started kicking her so hard he bruised three of her ribs. He kicked her because she accidentally spilled a glass of water on Miss Kiran, the University's Abnormal Psychology professor, even though Miss Kiran smiled at her and said that it was okay, everyone has an accident or two.

Rachael was expecting it. She couldn't remember the last time her father hadn't hit her for embarrassing him, accident or no. She was just never good enough, always messing everything up, no matter how hard she tried to be perfect for daddy.

Her mother walked in on the beating half-way through. She stared at them for a few moments then turned right back around and drank half a bottle of vodka before going upstairs to bed. Just as Rachael couldn't remember a time where her father wasn't hurting her, she couldn't remember a time when her mother stopped him. She would just drink and drink until she could pretend it wasn't happening. It never worked.

Her father finished hitting her a few minutes later and threw her in the closet and locked the door. It wasn't the first time Rachael would spend the night in the small dark space. Bad girls didn't deserve to sleep in their rooms.

She hated it in there, hated how it felt like the walls were closing in on her and eating her alive. Each and every night she spent forced in the closet felt like her last night on earth. But eventually morning would come and her father would open the door and Rachael would promise over and over that she wouldn't be bad anymore; she'd be a good girl just like her daddy wanted. He'd grunt and tell her to get out of that ridiculous dress and make me my damn coffee.

Rachael never screamed when she went into the closet, never begged to be let out, not anymore. Because when she screamed and cried and begged, her father would throw her in the car trunk instead and that was much, much worse. It only took five times in the trunk to learn her lesson and be quiet. It was four times too many.

Her father still put her in the trunk when she was really, really bad.

In there, she always screamed.

II.

When Rachael was thirteen her father divorced her mother. He signed away all parental rights towards Rachael and kicked her and her mother out of his house. Two months later, he was married to one of the Biology professors at his University. Rachael felt betrayed. Miss Tokly had been her favorite of daddy's colleagues. Apparently, she had been daddy's favorite too.

Rachael's mother, Judy, picked them up and moved them out of Georgia to a small town in Florida near Tampa called Beacon Hills. They got a shoebox apartment for average rent and Judy got a job at one of the clothing stores in the mall. She'd pick up as many shifts as she could to afford the bottles of liquor she'd down at night. Her alcoholism rarely left enough money to pay for rent and other necessities.

Rachael was often forced to steal portions of Judy's paycheck and store it away so that Rachael could pay whatever bills she could, as Judy was too inebriated to do it herself. Judy never noticed Rachael struggling to keep them afloat. The thirteen year old spent all her time cleaning, cooking them meals when they could afford food, doing their laundry and throwing away the numerous empty vodka bottles that littered their apartment. She didn't go to school, only because Judy never got her enrolled in the local middle school.

The woman was too busy drowning in alcohol and anger and self-pity. As badly as Rachael's father treated them, Judy had been dependent on him. She loved him with all her heart and the fact that he just tossed her aside like yesterday's trash ruined her. It destroyed any happiness she had and left an empty husk of a drunk behind.

Judy never blamed herself or Rachael's father for the divorce and the following implosion of her life. No, Judy blamed Rachael. Everything was fine until the little fuck-up came into their lives. If it wasn't for Rachael, she'd still be happily married in her own damn house instead of in this shithole of an apartment in this shithole town and it is all your fault, you little bitch.

Rachael spent every night wishing that her father had kept her instead of abandoning her with her mother. It wasn't that she loved him more. Rachael had realized a while ago that she didn't love her father, didn't want to love him. She realized that he was a terrible person and that she didn't need to impress him, she didn't need his approval or his love because he would never give her either. He didn't want her and she didn't want him. Rachael decided she was fine with that.

No, she the reason wished she was with Warren instead of Judy wasn't because she loved Warren more. It was because bruises healed a hell of a lot quicker than the words Judy threw at her every single night. Rachael could handle physical abuse. It was bad for a while but the pain eventually faded. She learned what set Warren off and how to avoid it.

What Rachael couldn't handle was Judy's verbal and emotional abuse. Everything set her off and there was no way to hide from the spoken barbs that Judy constantly dug into her. Rachael couldn't run away from the echoes of worthless, idiot, fuck-up that followed her for days, even after Judy finally blacked out for the night.

And yet, every night Rachael would clean Judy up and tuck her safely in to bed. In the morning, all the empty bottles would be thrown away and a glass of water with two aspirins would appear on Judy's bedside table. Breakfast and hot coffee would be waiting on the kitchen counter and Rachael would be nowhere to be seen until Judy came back from the liquor store after her shift, where she would find dinner plated and ready to go. The only things Judy said in response to Rachael's efforts were insults.

Rachael just tried harder.

It took a lot longer for her to realize that her mother didn't love her than it did to realize her father didn't.

When the realization did come, it also hurt a hell of a lot more.

III.

When Rachael was fourteen, she came home to the apartment to find all of her belongings strewn across the landing. She tracked down the landlord and demanded to be told what was going on. They had paid their rent for the month, why the fuck was all their stuff tossed out like trash?!

Your stuff, kid he said. He told her that Judy paid to break the lease agreement, took her crap and buggered off to who knows where. Rachael was shit-out of luck because she didn't live in that apartment anymore and if she didn't collect her shit and scram, it was going in the trash where it belongs and he was calling the cops to remove her from the premises, capiche?

Rachael ran back up the stairs and frantically searched the apartment. It was empty. There was none of her mother's clothes, none of her pictures. None of her alcohol.

There wasn't a goodbye note. Not even a forwarding address. Rachael was alone. That was the day she realized her mother didn't love her because no one abandons the people they love. Not like this.

So feeling like someone beat her emotional well-being to hell, Rachael packed up all her stuff in two duffel bags, stored her second-hand laptop safely in her backpack, grabbed the nearly five hundred dollars in emergency cash she kept hidden behind the kitchen sink. Then she left.

It was July 23rd, a month after she graduated middle school. It was also two days before her fifteenth birthday. Rachael didn't celebrate it that year. Or the next. Or the year after that. Or ever again, really. She didn't like the reminder of the day her parents voluntarily made her an orphan.

She didn't like remembering that she was worthless.

IV.

When Rachael was fifteen and half-way through her freshman year of high school, she met Stiles for the first time.

That wasn't his real name; his real one was something Russian that only his mom could pronounce correctly. When she died from breast cancer when he was eight, he changed his name to Stiles. He didn't like everyone else butchering the name his mom gave him.

He never told anyone else his real name. No one – that is, except Rachael.

She had seen the junior around Beacon Hills High before. It was kind of hard to miss the rambling, spastic, ADHD son of the Sheriff with his apparent fetish for flannel and a glaringly obvious obsession with queen bee Lydia Martin.

She knew he was on the lacrosse team with Lydia's boyfriend Jackson Whitmore. Rachael always found it amusing that the two were co-captains given how much they hate each other. But being co-captain made Stiles automatically a part of the popular crowd, which was also how Rachael knew about him. Teenagers loved to gossip, especially about the 'cool kids'.

Rachael was thankfully not a member of the cool kids club. She was a blissfully anonymous freshman outcast – just the way she wanted it. All Rachael wanted was to make it to eighteen unmolested so she could apply to colleges and make something of herself. That meant graduating top of her class. It also meant that no one figured out that she had been living out of the abandoned train station for the past year, so being noticed was a bad idea. She took great care to make sure she never looked too unkempt, kept her clothes presentable and took regular showers in the girl's locker room.

She did a good job of being invisible. So of course the son of the damned Sheriff was the first one who noticed her.

She was walking back to the train station in the pouring rain from her job at Frank's Diner (which she acquired with a $200 fake ID and a forged work permit) when Stiles's iconic blue powder Jeep rolled past her. She watched in confusion as it suddenly stopped and reversed to where she was walking.

Stiles had the window rolled down and a kind smile in his face.

"Need a lift?" He asked and Rachael didn't know how to respond so she just nodded dumbly and got in the Jeep. It wasn't like the Sheriff's kid was going to kidnap her. Stiles tried to talk to her on the car ride over to her old apartment (she wasn't stupid enough to ask the Sheriff's kid to drop her at an abandoned train station) but Rachael didn't say much. It was okay though because Stiles talked enough for the two of them, telling some funny lacrosse stories and quirky anecdotes about the shenanigans he got up to as a kid.

When he dropped her off in front of the building, he gave her a wide smile and told her that they should hang out sometime when he wasn't forcing her into letting him give her a ride. He didn't seem phased by her noncommittal answer and even waited until she was safely inside the building before driving off again.

It was such a nice thing for him to do that Rachael wasn't even upset that she had to walk an extra half mile through the rain to get back to the train station. The entire time she was filled with a warm happy glow because someone thought she was worth enough to be nice to and that hadn't happened in a very long time.

The second time she met Stiles, he was getting beat up by three jackasses on the football team. It was a few days after Stiles had driven her home and while the junior hadn't talked to her again, he smiled at her in the hallways and waved at her across the parking lot. It almost felt like Stiles did actually want to be her friend. It was a novel feeling. Rachael decided she liked it.

She never waved back.

Near the end of her second period class Rachael was walking to use the bathroom when she saw the trio of football jocks kicking the shit out of another kid she couldn't identify curled up on the ground. She watched frozen for a second before feeling herself getting angry.

She still remembered being like that kid lying on the ground while her father stood above her. She remembered that feeling of helplessness and she knew that no one deserved to feel like that. Before she knew what she was doing, Rachael was walking purposefully towards the huddle.

When she was about ten feet away she heard the football asses jeering at the fallen kid, saying shit like 'that's what you get for being a faggot'. It made her even angrier because that kid definitely should not be beat and especially not for whom he loves.

When she was five feet, she saw the kid one the ground was Stiles. Sweet, friendly Stiles who now had tears streaming out of his eyes and a look of absolute loathing on his face.

Rachael saw red.

Within seconds she was in front of the ringleader, already throwing a punch that landed squarely on his nose. He reeled back and Rachael followed, hitting him in the same place again and again until she heard a satisfying crack of his nose breaking. Then she threw a wicked elbow across his jaw that sent him sprawling down the hall.

She barely heard the bell ring or the students filling the hall as she stalked towards Stiles's tormentor. She didn't hear the hall fall silent as she placed her foot squarely on the douchebag's chest and applied pressure until he wheezed for breath. She didn't hear how cold and deadly her voice got when she told the fucker that if he ever bothered Stiles again, she'd make his worthless excuse of a life a goddamned living hell.

She did notice the people after the football player nodded, cradling his broken nose as it gushed blood. She noticed them as she turned and walked back over to Stiles who was being helped up by Jackson Whitmore and Danny Mahealani. She noticed when she stabbed a finger in Whitmore's chest and told him to take better care of his goddamned team because he doesn't let shit like this happen to Danny so why the fuck are you letting it happen to Stiles?

She noticed when a couple teachers pulled her away from the lacrosse players and dragged her towards the principal's office.

But what she noticed most of all was the absolutely stunned look on Stiles's face. Rachael wasn't sure what to make of it. So she just stared back until she was pulled out of sight.

She didn't regret a thing.

Not even when they called the Sherriff.

The office tried to get in touch with Judy using the contact information Rachael submitted. It obviously didn't work as the cellphone number Rachael gave was a payphone on 7th and Philips, and Judy's old place of work had records that said she quit months ago. Then they tried to get a hold of her father. He picked up on the fourth ring then hung up the moment they said Rachael's name. She tried very hard not to feel anything when it happened. She wasn't sure she succeeded.

It was after that they called in John Stilinski.

Rachael wanted to ignore him. She wanted so badly to remain silent and obstinate but the Sheriff had the same kind smile Stiles did and gave off such a feeling of safety that Rachael suddenly found herself talking. She told the Sheriff how when Warren divorced Judy, she turned into a barely functioning alcoholic. How she spent all her money on vodka instead of food and rent, how she abandoned Rachael and sold their apartment without telling her.

She didn't tell him about the abuse. Any of it. She still thinks he knew anyway, that he saw it in her eyes.

She did tell the Sheriff how she had enrolled herself in middle school and high school, about the fake ID and how she was living out of the abandoned train station. She ignored the horror struck and pitying looks on the administration's faces and focused on the warm blue eyes of the Sheriff, his understanding smile and the feeling of safe. She absently noted that Stiles must have gotten his eyes from his mother. His were a honey color, not blue.

Rachael told Stiles's father how his son stopped in the middle of a rainstorm to give her a ride home. To her old apartment building, she clarified when she saw the skeptical look on his face. They both know that if Stiles had known she was living in a train station, she would have met the Sheriff days ago.

She told him how today in school she saw a group of guys beating a kid on the ground. How they were calling out homophobic slurs. She told him when she got closer, she saw it was Stiles. She watched the anger in his eyes turn into the barest hint of vindictive pleasure when she described with no small amount of pride how she broke the leader's nose and threatened him.

She also saw a healthy measure of guilt in the Sheriff's gaze. Rachael wasn't sure if it was because of the satisfaction the Sheriff got that his son's assailant got his ass handed to him or because of something else. Rachael decided she didn't know the Sheriff well enough to ask.

When she was finished talking there was silence. Rachael remembers fidgeting in her seat feeling self-conscious and embarrassed that all these people heard about how she was weak and worthless. It made her angry all over again. She remembers glaring up at the Sheriff and asking rather viciously what he was going to do with her now.

She still remembers the shock she felt when he said he was taking her back to the train station so that they could pick up her stuff. Then they could go get pizza before setting her up in the Stilinski guest bedroom. She remembers the alarmed look on his face when she started crying. Remembers the look sad confusion she got when she said that it was the second nicest thing anyone's done for her in years.

Most of all she remembers the look of absolute heartbreak on the Sheriff's kind face when she told him Stiles driving her home the other day was the first.

The rest of that day was a blur. Everything was snippets of color and sound until she's sitting motionless in her pajamas on the guest bed in the Stilinski household, knees curled up to her chest and staring blankly at the wall. She doesn't startle when the door opens and Stiles slips in, face bruised and painful and doesn't react when he kneels in front of her and gently grabs her hands.

She does hear him when he asks her why.

"Why did you offer to drive me home?" is her response. His eyebrows furrow and he tells her it was because she was wet and cold and he had a car, why wouldn't he offer to drive her home? Rachael nodded; it was the answer she expected and the answer she returned.

"Why wouldn't I have helped you? You were in pain and you didn't deserve it. I had the ability to help so I did." She tells him. He looks up at her quietly and she knows right then that the Sherriff – John, he asked her to call him John – told Stiles about what she said in the office. She can see it in his eyes.

"I wanted to be your friend." Stiles says abruptly and Rachael tilts her head. "Before." He explains. "I saw you when you were working in the Diner and in the library during study period." He looks up at her sincerely. "You were always so quiet. Except it was a sad sort of quiet, like life beat you down and you weren't sure how to get back up. It was part of the reason I drove you home that day in the rain. You looked like you needed a friend. And when we were in the car, you were still quiet but you were nice. You didn't look annoyed with my rambling. And you sassed at me a few times and you were funny and I wanted to be your friend. I meant it when I said we should have hung out."

Rachael looks at him with something akin to wonder. "Is that why you kept waving at me in school?" She asks shyly and Stiles nods with a grin. She takes a deep breath and tries to pluck up a string of courage. She ignores the part of her that screams that Stiles is lying because no one would ever want to be her friend, she's a fuck-up just like her mother always said and quietly asks "Did you still want to be my friend?"

And Stiles smiles softly and shakes his head and Rachael feels like someone threw an anchor in her stomach. She feels oddly vindicated, like she was right that no one wanted her, that everyone leaves because she's not good enough, she's worthless and –

"I don't want to be your friend, Rachael." Stiles says interrupting her spiraling thoughts and still smiling softly. "I want to be your brother."

Rachael feels her heart stop and her breath catch. He sees the dumbstruck look on her face and squeezes her hands tighter. "I want to be your big brother. I want to be your big brother and your family and your best friend and I want to protect you like you protected me today. Because you had shitty things happen to you and I have the ability to make sure it doesn't happen anymore. So I'm not going to let it, okay?"

Rachael just nods because what else can she do? She can see the sincerity pouring out of Stiles in waves, can see that the junior has decided that something about Rachael is worth making family and Rachael almost can't breathe. It's the best things that has ever happened to her and despite the fact that she knows Stiles and John are good people; she can't help but be doubtful because she's scared.

Scared that Stiles doesn't mean it.

Scared that he does and that she'd going to mess it up.

Scared that the Stilinski's are going to realize she'd not worth it and are going to abandon her like her parents did.

Scared that they won't.

But Stiles seems to get it because he just keeps smiling and says it's okay if she doesn't believe him. He'll just have to prove it to her. And he will, as often as it takes until she does believe.

Then he squeezes her hands one more time before getting up to leave.

"Stiles?" Her voice stops him at her doorway. "What's you real name?"

She knows it's a personal question by the way his shoulder tense up but she needs to hear the answer, needs to see if Stiles trusts her. He seems to realize this because he sighs and turns around so he can look at her.

"Dad is the only one in Beacon Hills who knows." He tells her and Rachael feels a brief stab of guilt for making him tell her but she still waits expectantly. He sees her hopeful expression and laughs a little. "It's Yevgeniy." He tells her quietly. "I changed it to Stiles when my mom died. She was the only one who could pronounce it without butchering it."

Rachael nods, touched because he trusted her enough to share and because she understands. He doesn't want to dishonor the name his mother gave him by having it ruined every time someone tries to say it. "Can I try?" She asks softly.

He nods so she takes a breath and speaks "Yevgeniy", feeling the way the sounds roll off her tongue. She nods, satisfied. It's a good name. His mother chose well.

She glances up at Stiles and knows he can see the approval in her eyes.

"That's the best I've heard anyone pronounce it besides my family." He tells her, quiet satisfaction surrounding him and he smirks. "Guess I chose my little sister well."

Rachael beams at him and decides to repay a secret with a secret. "I hate my name." she tells Stiles who stills and listens intently. "It reminds me of my parents and I hate being reminded of my parents. When I turn eighteen, I'm changing it. Legally."

"What to?"

"Rebecca. Rebecca Rae Mitchell."

He nods and Rachael knows he understands. He smiles at her. "Alright. Beca it is. I'll tell Dad in the morning and see if we can talk the school into changing your name on the roster."

Rachael looks at him in shock. "You'd do that?"

"Anything for my little sister." He pauses for a moment, seeming to have an internal debate before making up his mind. He walks over to the bed and pulls Rachael into a quick hug. "'Night, Beca. I'll see you in the morning. If you need anything I'm two doors down and Dad's at the end of the hall."

Rachael nods and Stiles gets up again. He gets to the door before Rachael's sleepy voice stops him once. more

"Oh, and Stiles? I'm gay too."

She doesn't see the wide smile that splits his face or hear the playfully muttered 'family indeed'. Rachael is too busy sleeping.

V.

When Rachael is fifteen, she gets a real family.

VI.

When she's sixteen, she actually starts to believe it.

VII.

When she's eighteen she legally changes her name to Rebecca Rae Mitchell. John and Stiles throw her a party. November 14th is her new official birthday. It was one of the happiest days of her life.

VIII.

When Beca is twenty, she's accepted into Barden University in Atlanta, Georgia. She has enough credits to enroll as a sophomore and does. She's majoring in music and business with the aspirations of opening her own record label.

Her brother and best friend Stiles is enrolled at University of Mongolia, an hour away. He's a junior, working towards a degree in Computer Science and another in Folklore and Mythology.

IX.

When Beca is twenty, her life gets turned upside down and backward.

Because when Beca was twenty, she gets accepted into Barden University, one hour away from her brother, four hours away from her father.

She gets accepted into Barden and she meets seniors Chloe Beale and Aubrey Posen.

It's the best thing that happens to her since she broke a football player nose for beating up the Sheriff's son. Especially because both times, she gets a family.