Author's Note: OK so I was told to write another Stalia AU fanfic, and was given this prompt by Karen (stilesism) to make it inspired by the Vow so this is what I've come up with. It will have multiple chapters of course but I don't know how long it'll be. Guess you'll have to read and see! Enjoy!

Strange Terrain

Chapter 1 – Moments

"Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." – Omar Keyyam

Stiles always believed that life consisted of moments. It was just one big, cluster-fuck of moments that impacted your life; good ones that made it all worthwhile, and bad ones that made it feel like the world had stopped spinning and all of the air had been sucked out of your lungs. He had been the victim of far too many of those kinds of moments.

At two, his mother had died of cancer. Cruel and abrupt, she had been snatched from him before he had even learned to form real, complex sentences.

At nineteen, his father had lost his job. It wasn't his fault, really – he was getting older, wasn't as sharp as he had been once, and could only be the sheriff of their small town for so long. But it stuck Stiles with a job he hated for three and a half years in order to pay his way through college. Back then, he'd thought that it would all be worth it.

The plan had been simple: get his diploma, get a real job, get married.

Well his diploma was still sitting under a layer of dust in its frame in a box under his bed, he'd had zero luck in the real job department, and his love life was pretty much nonexistent.

Of course, his life wasn't all bad.

While his job was laughable it was still a job – he was the assistant manager of Howlin' Records, which was an old record store in downtown Beacon Hills that sold dusty vinyl and battered used books, but the atmosphere was ten times better than the stuffy pizza shop he'd been stuck as a delivery boy for during college, and it paid the bills. In fact, a few months after he had started working there, he had been able to move out of his dad's house and into his own apartment, which, he'd thought, would make him way more appealing to the ladies.

But as it turned out, the only ladies in his life were the overly pierced teenager that worked the register at Howlin' and the barista that he often got his coffee from at Bobby's Coffee.

He stood in line at Bobby's that very moment, staring at the selection of breakfast pastries and willing the people in front of him to hurry the hell up when he noticed someone out of the corner of his eye. Beacon Hills wasn't a tiny town but after having lived there for his entire life, Stiles felt like he knew every single person there and could tell when someone seemed out of place. Usually, it didn't mean much. It was just a mental acknowledgement that yet another person had been suckered into moving into town. But this one was different.

She sat at a small, round table in the corner by the window, wearing cut-off jean shorts and combat boots despite the fact that it was beyond freezing outside, her dark brown hair just grazing her shoulders. She was pretty, way too pretty to be from around here.

She sat with her legs crossed at the knee, her foot bouncing absently, her thumbnail tucked between her teeth as she scanned a map of the city. Peeking out from beneath the map was a folded newspaper with things circled in pen. Just a second before he was being summoned to the counter, she glanced up and they made eye-contact. It was only a split second of contact, but he could already feel his skin starting to burn with embarassment. How long had he been staring? Seconds? Minutes?

He didn't muster up the courage to look over again until he went to pick up his coffee. By that point, she had gathered up her things and was leaving, nearly running into him as he turned around again. His coffee splashed onto his hand, narrowly missing the edge of his sleeve.

The hot liquid stung, but he barely noticed it.

"Shit, sorry," the woman admonished quickly, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder and taking a step back, giving him a significant amount of space. "I'm all over the place today."

"New in town?" Stiles asked without really thinking.

She rose an eyebrow then noticed that she was holding the map in her hand and laughed. "Uh, yeah. Just moved here yesterday and am still getting turned around everywhere I go," she explained. "I'm actually late for a meeting with my potential landlord at…" she trailed off, looking at a note she had written to herself on her palm, "1225 West Street. I think it's halfway across town, though."

"What? No, it's only ten minutes from here." Stiles told her. "I'm actually on my way to work, which is in that direction. I could give you a ride." She gave him a skeptical look. "Okay, yeah, I know how that sounds – me, a total stranger, offering you a ride. But I swear, I'm not going to kidnap you or anything."

The woman grinned. "Good, because if I miss this meeting, I'm pretty much screwed." She started for the door, not wasting any time. "I'm Malia, by the way."

She pulled her coat tighter around herself as they walked out of the movie theater, flecks of snow latching onto her hair and body, her cheeks reddening from the cold.

The second they got to his Jeep and hopped inside, Stiles cranked the heat as far up as it could go, rubbing his hands together to get some friction going and glancing over at his wife as she busied herself with drawing obscene things on the foggy passenger side window.

"You're not freezing right now?" Stiles asked, as if he hadn't realized this already after dating her for a year and a half and being married to her for two.

"Always the tone of surprise," Malia responded in amusement, sitting back in her seat and pulling on her seatbelt. "When I was little, I used to get cold really easily, but now I guess I've grown out of it. I don't really feel it anymore. I thought I told you this?"

Stiles shrugged, putting on his own seatbelt before pulling the car away from the curb and into the street. The radio was playing some poppy version of a classic Christmas song, which Malia was humming along to absently as they made their way home. They were about halfway there when Stiles finally turned the radio down, and Malia looked over at him, confused.

"Hey, I think someone's calling me. Can you get my phone out of my pocket?" Stiles asked her.

She rolled her eyes but obliged nonetheless, reaching over the center console and into his jacket pocket, fishing around for his phone. "Stiles, I don't think…" Malia trailed off when her fingers hit a smooth box, and she pulled it out, curious. She glanced at Stiles and then focused on the box, long and slender, in her hands. She opened it and inside was a gleaming silver necklace with a cursive M inlaid with diamonds. "Oh my God."

Stiles pulled the car to a stop at the next stop sign, looking over at her. "Well? Do you like it?"

"Do I like it?" Malia repeated, breathless. "I love it," she told him, unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching over to kiss him. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Stiles replied, grinning against her lips. "Happy anniversary."

"Happy anniversary," she murmured, pulling back to gaze at him for a moment. It was only a moment, a moment where they felt totally frozen in time, totally engrossed in one another. They were too distracted by their moment to notice the headlights growing fast in the rearview mirror, the blaring horn, until the truck slammed into the back of the car and everything went black.