These are the first words I'm writing in my Wolf Girl Journal, or maybe I should call it the AP Bio Journal That's Totally Going to Get Me into Berkeley. Potato, potato. (Note to self: that joke looks stupid written down.) (Note to self: even writing longhand it's hard to stay on topic.)
"Shit," grumbled Stiles as she wiped mud off her hiking boots. Of course she understood that hiking boots were meant to get muddy but artistically muddy, pretty little splatters that contrasted with her red laces –not big ugly smears of gray gunk that made it look like she had stepped on a rotting trout or something, something shit-like. She picked up a stick to try and scrape more mud off. It looked pretty hopeless and also she was going to step in the mud again on her way back to where her Jeep was parked but writing in the journal was boring at the moment. She had a sick sort of feeling in her stomach that she had screwed the whole journal concept up by writing dumb things already on the first page. Computers were better because you could delete and get the fresh white page back again.
AP Bio was like a big complicated lover that she was constantly in love and hate with. Kind of like her life she supposed. Stiles tossed away her stick and leaned back against the tree to get comfortable and question every decision in her life that had led her to this point. Her mother died, right off that was the most important thing anyone needed to know about Stiles. Her mother was smart and beautiful and awesome and after she tucked little Stiles in every night she climbed a ladder to hang up the moon. Stiles' dad would agree with her, under oath if necessary. These were the facts. Her mother died when she was twelve and it was hard. Twelve is when you need a mom the most because your body starts freaking out and you don't know what's happening and that was right when her mom died. It was super hard. Stiles' kind of failed puberty because of it, she was sort of catching up now maybe, but who really knew. Stiles tried to surround herself with loving and affirming friends; friends who wouldn't notice that she had the wrong kind of mud on her hiking boots.
And although she didn't know squat about make-up or hair or least of all fashion, it was usually okay because Stiles was smart. There wasn't exactly a death bed promise but Stiles hadn't scored lower than an A- on anything since her mother died. It was something, something she could actually do. Something she was sure would have made her mom proud. Nothing but A minuses until this year that was, AP Bio was kicking her ass. Maybe her imminent B, or possibly C since Mr. Booth had no sense of humor whatsoever, was the reason she was floundering around in the woods worrying about mud on her shoes. Because now that she was apparently not a girl genius anymore maybe she should find a pretty face to fall back on. Stiles sighed hugely and wrapped her arms tighter around her legs, this was probably a good place to cry and it wasn't like she had mascara that might run or anything, but, but she didn't want to cry because of Mr. Booth. She didn't want to question her whole life because of Mr. Booth. And god damn if he was going to send her GPA into the crapper. So, she scrubbed her cheeks for a minute and took a deep breath, picking her journal back up again and scrabbling around in the leaves for her pen.
I went to the woods to live deliberately and not when it came time to leave for college realize that I had not seen them.
The note made her smile at least, the project was to do some sort of field study and Stiles had gone kind of literal with her idea when she picked out this spot in the woods. This tree and the little downward slope to a happy little brook and the killer view out towards the east, this bit of woods, and she was going to come every day as best she could and just study it. Note any tracks she saw, take an inventory of the biodiversity, maybe run a few water samples. Study the field, yeah, Mr. Booth wasn't impressed with the word play but for some reason instead of changing her mind Stiles just dug her heels in deeper. Something about the project idea felt really right to her. Like it was important that she know this place and she would regret choosing any other project. She couldn't even imagine choosing any other tree, which was weird but stubborn ran in her family.
She stood up and brushed the leaves off her behind. She had a tape measure in her backpack and some topo maps; it was time to map out her kingdom.
The young wolf watched the girl curiously. He had been loping around in the woods like he did every day when he got thirsty and trotted down to the stream for a drink. Well, not straight to the stream; he paused inside the thick line of bushes to look around before he burst out into the open. Nothing had ever hunted him in the woods but instincts went deeper than experience, and it was from his safe spot in the bushes that he saw the girl. The word girl rolled around in his head and he dropped down to his belly so he could study her closer.
She was picking at her boots with a stick, now she was throwing the stick and he gave a little twitch in the direction the stick flew as thoughts of chasing it danced. But the girl wasn't even watching to see where it landed; now she was sad. The wolf's tail thumped the ground, she was really sad and he could almost taste what her tears would be like if he was close enough to lick them away. But he didn't move, not when she stopped crying, not until she started marching around with the loud tape measure thing and even then not until she came too close to his bushes. There were other streams.
The wolf did go back later though; he even found the stick and carried it back to the tree she had sat beneath. Which was stupid and he didn't know why he did that. He didn't know why he spent so long sniffing around the tree either. He even curled up and laid in the exact spot where she had cried, it made him feel sad too though so he got up and went back to his den.
Stiles had no woods sense, was that the name for it? She wasn't a tracker, in fact it was pretty brave of her to think she could find her tree again. There was no cell signal, which sucked, but she had taken about a hundred pictures so she was reasonably sure this was the right spot. And hey, her stick was here so it was totally the right spot, except she sort of remembered chucking the stick. That was weird.
Stiles was a little flustered but there was a plan for the day so she focused. She had created a map of the field and today she was taping one leaf from each tree into her journal so she could look them up at home and add the data to her map.
Deciding on clockwise Stiles walked up to the first tree and grabbed a leaf, she jammed it into the binding and added a few notes about the bark.
The wolf was so mystified by her behavior that he forgot to slink away when she came close. He froze and hunkered down in the dirt and leaves quivering. The girl didn't seem to notice him except she was talking, was she talking to him or did she just naturally talk a lot? The wolf closed his eyes as the words washed over him and hoped she might come back again.
"Stiles, why does your journal say Wolf Girl?" Asked Allison at lunch the next day. "It seems a little, um, whimsical for Mr. Booth."
"I know," sighed Stiles. "I'm probably going to have to rewrite the whole thing before I turn it in, or maybe I should just keep two?"
" That might be safer, he will take off points for this. I mean it's cute but there aren't any wolves in Beacon Hills."
Scott choked on his sandwich as Stiles seemed to inflate next to him. Both girls paused to look at him red-faced and tearing. "Stiles," he gasped, "I'll tell her, you have class in a few minutes."
Stiles deflated again and offered Scott her water bottle. He took a swig and then hugged her awkwardly around the waist as she stood up and gathered her things.
It wasn't unusual for Scott and Stiles to be bumping into each other or doing bro hugs during the day, the way Scott was rubbing his cheek on her hip was strangely intimate but Allison ignored it. Scott's had given her puppy eyes from the minute she moved to town and it freaked her out for a while because of course she assumed they were a couple.
Lydia Martin had assured her they weren't a couple, she didn't seem too impressed with either of them but Allison found herself looking forward to Scott's sweet smiles and big brown eyes each day. And eventually Stiles had pushed Scott into her locker so he had to stammer out a hello. Lydia had rolled her eyes and said something critical about Stiles' hair while the world kept turning.
Allison never asked Scott what the bond between him and Stiles was exactly, it seemed personal or painful or something and she decided it was too early in their relationship to ask. Apparently the bond had to do with wolves, maybe?
After school Stiles had her most successful trip ever to the field. She parked her Jeep and stomped straight to her tree, it was as automatic as going home and throwing herself onto her bed. "Are you here?" She called to the bushes down by the creek, maybe they moved, maybe she just wanted them to. "I took like a hundred high definition pictures here that first day you know. I saw your furry little ears."
The wolf who was hiding in the bushes flattened back his furry little ears. He whined too but the girl was talking again and didn't hear him.
"It's cool, I understand the shy thing and I know that it can take a while to warm up to me. Maybe you aren't even here today, but whatever I talk to myself all the time anyway.
So this girl, Allison, you would like her she's really nice, but she saw my journal. You know the book I write in whenever I come here," Stiles held up the book in the direction of the bushes because visual aids were important. "So I've been carrying this thing everywhere and I doodle sometimes and my brain is always going so I write in it a lot and on the cover I wrote Wolf Girl."
Stiles stopped talking to the bushes then, she had dropped her visual aid and was crying into her knees again. The wolf whined and crawled out of the bushes on his belly. His tail made a swish swish noise in the dry leaves and when Stiles looked up at him her smile was like the sun breaking out of clouds.
Scott and Allison were in her car parked on the edge of town where the view was pretty nice. They were both actually staring at the trees while Scott gathered his words. Finally he began.
"The Stilinskis moved to Beacon Hills because of the preserve. Stiles's mom was a wildlife biologist, her dad used to be a park ranger and that's how they met. Now he's the sheriff." Scott added unnecessarily but Allison let him proceed at his own pace.
Her mom and my mom were friends and my dad is in law enforcement like the sheriff so you know they got together a lot. Stiles was annoying of course but she was smart and funny and most of the time when I whined about going to their house it was just because I thought I should be whining.
And then my parent's marriage started falling apart and I would really fight going over to the Stilinskis because it hurt to see them all together and happy, I was so miserable and jealous. That was a pretty shitty thing to do to my mother though because Mrs. Stilinski was like her best friend so of course she needed her then.
And then Mrs. Stilinski got cancer and was really sick for months and months. Right after I had wished that their perfect family would stop being so perfect. And you know my mom's a nurse so when Stiles tried to move in to the hospital to be with her mom my mom would see her and drag her over to our house.
So I guess that's how we became so close, our worlds crashed at the same time."
"How old were you guys?" Asked Allison softly.
"We were twelve that summer."
"It must have been really hard, I'm glad you had each other."
"And Uncle Mario, Uncle Mario got us through a lot of sad lonely days."
"Is Uncle Mario your uncle or Stiles's?" Asked Allison with an adorable wrinkle between her eyes.
"He's everybody's uncle Allison. We played an insane amount of Mario Kart that summer."
Allison's adorable wrinkle looked a little angry.
"Wolf girl?" She finally asked as she put the car in gear to head back to town.
"Oh, her mom, the wildlife biologist, swore that Stiles's eyes are the exact color of a wolf's. She wasn't wrong, I saw a wolf at the San Diego Zoo and it stared at me, it felt exactly like when Stiles is waiting for me to catch up to her.
Her mom called her Wolf Girl."
"Wow," breathed Stiles softly as she watched the wolf creep out of the bushes and towards her. "Aren't you totally cool and awesome looking? What'cha doing in the woods all alone though puppy?"
The wolf didn't snarl at her question but his lip curled in a displeased manner.
Rather than being the slightest bit intimidated Stiles just smiled brighter, "don't like being called a puppy huh? Do you think if I moved really super super slowly I could get my phone out and take a few hundred pictures of you before you sneak off again?" asked Stiles as she slowly pulled out her phone.
The next day at lunch neither Lydia nor Allison was impressed with the pictures that Stiles had printed of a black dog laying in some bushes. "Are you going to put up some Found Dog posters around town?" asked Lydia in a tone that showed she knew she was being mean.
"That's cute," replied Stiles in a tone that showed she didn't think it was the slightest bit cute, "but see the deep furring in the ears, I don't think it's a dog."
The ears were in fact deeply furred and Allison had no idea what that meant, but as the new girl and as some sort of bridge between apparent mortal enemies she decided to mitigate the fray, "maybe it's a hybrid that got loose?"
Lydia and Stiles shared a surprised look and then, shockingly, both of their eyes started to crease up into a shared smirk. "Lobo," sighed Lydia as they started to giggle.
"Lobo?" asked Allison trying to keep up.
This week, by chance, Lydia and Jackson were not going out, if it had been last Tuesday she might have defended the memory of Lobo, maybe. "Once upon a time Jackson decided that having a pet wolf would be cool,"
"And bad ass," added Stiles.
Lydia nodded, "so he talked his parents into buying him a wolf hybrid, and he named it Lobo. Of course."
Stiles chuckled and Allison just sort of gaped.
"Shockingly, Lobo turned out to be a little much for Jackson," continued Lydia.
"What was it, sixteen stitches?" asked Stiles still chuckling.
"At least you didn't have to help him change the bandage or pretend to be sympathetic when he told the story a hundred times."
"No, but it was my dad that they called to come shoot the poor thing." Stiles stopped laughing.
"Did he?" asked Allison looking concerned for poor Lobo.
"No, he felt too much sympathy for anything that had been a pet of Jackson's. He brought it home for a couple nights and then Dr. Deaton, the vet, helped us find a rescue organization that found him a permanent home."
"Did Lobo behave in your house?" asked Allison.
"Yeah, he was an okay beast. Not super cuddly at first but we understood his body language pretty well so it was a chill visit."
"Didn't you want to keep him?" asked Allison and Lydia stopped whatever she was doing to look at Stiles intently, as if this was an aspect of the Lobo story she had never considered before.
"I guess I sort of did, he was cool looking and all that but he had just given Jackson sixteen stitches so my Dad didn't really think it would be a good idea. I mean, he didn't think Lobo was super dangerous or he wouldn't have brought him home but he didn't want to rub it in the Whittemore's face that it was Jackson and not the dog. We made sure he went to a good home though."
"Well, I guess you know better than I do what a hybrid looks like," admitted Allison glancing at Stiles' picture again.
"I still think it looks Lobo-ish," said Lydia, "but I don't remember much about Lobo and I haven't studied wolves at all."
Stiles looked at her picture again, "I will say that it makes no sense at all for one wolf to be alone in our woods. And he was super friendly, well, you know, for a wild animal, so maybe he is a lost pet."
"I googled you," Stiles informed the bushes near the brook. A nose peaked out of them and pointed in her direction; it was swiftly followed by a face and two paws. "There are no lost animals matching your description for two hundred miles, I even asked my friend who words at the local vet's office. He offered to let me borrow their microchip scanner, it's battery powered and everything, but I told him we weren't at that stage in our relationship yet. You know the way I sit very still here and you hide in the bushes there, it isn't really conducive to me scanning your body. That's a bit intimate for us don't you think?"
The wolf seemed to blink at her, Stiles nodded back. She was supposed to be doing more cataloging today, either shrubs or the water plants, but she didn't want to startle the wolf by moving around. Plus, it wasn't like biology was her only homework, or even like this was her only biology homework. With another look at the wolf Stiles pulled out her math homework and hoped she could get some of it done.
It was peaceful there in the woods and she was miles away from her usual distractions so Stiles actually got a ton of homework done. Her bottom was numb and it had become alarmingly dark but all in all she considered it an achievement, especially when she glanced around and saw the wolf laying about halfway between his usual bush and her usual tree. His head was resting on his paws and he looked a little forlorn and bored. Stiles smiled and felt bad for not talking out loud more during her homework, she was pretty sure she muttered a bunch though.
Slowly she reached for her backpack and dug through until she found a granola bar, a crushed and sorry looking granola bar, but a wolf shouldn't care. The wolf didn't seem alarmed at all as she crinkled the foil wrapper trying to open it, instead his tail was thumping again and he was on full alert. "You have totally been around people before haven't you?" she asked the wolf. "You know this is a cookie don't you, cookie, cookie, who's a good boy?" The tail thumped some more but the wolf didn't get up and dance around like Lobo would have.
"I can respect your dignity brother," praised Stiles as she broke the bar in half and tossed a chunk to the wolf. The wolf caught it neatly moving only his head and swallowed with a swipe of his long pink tongue. There had been a lot of teeth glinting in the dusk when he opened his mouth. Stiles threw him the other half too.
Standing up was a little comical because her butt was so sore but she managed, she stretched out her shoulders too because the ground just was not ergonomic and started the long trudge in the half dark back to her Jeep.
The sheriff was not pleased that Stiles didn't get home until 6:45 that night, he didn't even care that she had done so much of her homework. Well, maybe he was a little impressed. Mostly though he was suspicious, "why did you sit in the woods to do your homework?" he asked. Bingo, he thought to himself as she squirmed uncomfortably and he watched as she seemed to try out different lies in her head. He sighed loudly and disappointedly so Stiles quickly chose her answer.
"There's a critter in the bushes and I thought that if I sat still and quiet it might get used to me and come out," she replied.
"What sort of critter?" asked the sheriff knowing she would have said bunny if she thought it was a bunny so clearly it was something far more dangerous than a bunny.
"Maybe a stray dog, but I checked with Scott and on Craigslist and there aren't any reports of missing dogs that sound like this one."
"So you've seen it? Do you have pictures?" asked the sheriff with infinite patience. Cops made the best fathers he decided again.
Stiles huffed a little and pulled out her phone, she flipped through the photos and the sheriff knew she was looking for the safest looking one, and not the clearest. Whatever, once she handed him the phone he was going to look through ALL the pictures anyway.
He swiped left, and right, for a few minutes and then asked Stiles what sort of zooming abilities her camera had and made her show him in the backyard about how far away the slavering death beast usually was from her.
"That was fun," commented Stiles as they trooped back into the house. Her dad was in full sheriff mode, his hand was drifting towards their kitchen phone and she was sure that he intended to call a game warden or something. Then he lifted a finger towards her and she was sure he was going to ask if she could switch to another field, her reply would be a firm no, not after all that mapping work and looking up sixteen different trees. He could see that answer in the set of her shoulders so instead he tugged her down the hall to his office.
In his office he pulled out his big jingly ring of sheriff keys and stalked over to his gun cabinet. Stiles perked up a little bit and walked over to stand next to him.
"Okay, today is Thursday, right?"
Stiles nodded yes.
"Do you need to go back there tomorrow?" he asked as he pulled out a small pistol and checked the chamber.
"It would be good since I didn't do any field work today, just homework. But I should have a lot of time over the weekend to catch up."
"Okay, how about tomorrow night we eat a quick dinner and then head over to the firing range to get some of the rust off of you and then you can bring this with you when you go to the field over the weekend?" He handed Stiles the small Walther P22 and she ran her hands over it remembering.
They weren't a wack-o survivalist family but her dad was the sheriff so yeah, he taught her how to shoot when she was younger. It was something they could do together. She was never really awesome at it though and once she got her drivers license they sort of stopped going, now she couldn't remember the last time.
"Sounds good but I have to say, I'm not sure a 22 will even make it through that guy's fur."
"If the noise doesn't scare it into the next county you'd better be good enough to make a head shot then."
Stiles gave her father a dubious look and then glanced pointedly at his much bigger magnum; he took back the Walther and put it in the cabinet before locking it all up again.
"So what's up with you this rocking Friday night?" Allison asked Stiles because she thought she was being nice and friendly and she didn't realize that if Stiles wasn't with Scott she was home alone playing video games or surfing the internet.
Scott opened his mouth, to say what -he had no idea but Stiles was already answering, "My dad and I are going to the firing range, that's pretty rocking isn't it?"
"Oh, I didn't know you guys did that, but of course he is the sheriff. I love shooting, do you have room for one more?" she looked at Scott who's mouth was still open, "or maybe two?"
"Scotty doesn't like the firing range cuz the gunpowder messes with his asthma, but yeah, you can come too."
Scott looked sad now because he wasn't looking forward to a Friday night home alone playing video games or surfing the internet.
"Do you and your dad go often?" asked Allison.
"We used to," replied Stiles, "but we kind of got out of the habit. Yesterday he found out about the wolf dog at my field site so now he wants me to pack heat when I go there, hence the refresher."
"Oh, what kind of heat? Did you know that my daddy is a licensed firearms dealer?"
"I was not aware, wow, we have things in common I guess." Stiles looked mildly shocked. Like it had never occurred to her before that there could be a girl that she would have things in common with.
Scott smiled at her, he always took a special pleasure in other people learning how cool his best friend was. Not that he was forgiving her so quickly for the asthma crack, true as it was. Even if he wanted to go shooting again the sheriff would never let him, it wasn't worth pissing off his mother.
Stiles seemed to snap out of her shock and gave Scott a big smile, "we're going early, you'll still have time for whatever afterwards. I could pick you up at six?"
That sounded good to Allison and there was a lot of smiling and talk of calibers while Scott just looked pleased with the world, if not a little betrayed by his Friday night.
On Saturday morning Stiles was in her field bright and early. Her dad had apparently decided that he spent enough time with her on Friday night, it gave him leave to go fishing. Stiles didn't really mind, her dad needed to do things besides work and be home. Everyone needed other things to do and new places to go, that was why she was sitting in her field again.
She had stopped for a few things on her way so she was digging into a bag and pulling out a donut when the bushes moved and a familiar face popped out. "Hey, want a donut?" Stiles asked.
The wolf trotted over to her and sat down about ten feet away, Stiles flipped a donut to him and he caught it easily, gulping it down in a few bites.
"Sure, just hork it down and then make a sad face at my donut because yours is gone. I know your type," Stiles admonished.
The wolf laid down and rested his huge head on his front paws, it was a very good sad face. She gave him a tiny piece of her donut and he smiled at her.
After breakfast Stiles decided to get back to work on her cataloging and although she couldn't help chatting with the wolf while she worked she tried not to make eye contact with him or notice how he follower her around closer and closer. So close that by the time she took a break for lunch he was stretched out close enough to touch.
There was a second peanut butter and jelly sandwich just for him and Stiles greatly enjoyed the faces he made as he tried to get the bread and peanut butter goop unstuck from his mouth. Eventually the wolf got up and went to drink from the stream, when he came back he curled up next to her and this time he was touching. He stayed very still while she reached out and patted his head, until she decided he probably wasn't going to eat her and then she really started rubbing the spot behind his ears. He moved to rest his head on her thigh and his eyes closed.
The girl's voice washed over him and the wolf wondered if he would get tired of it. He hadn't heard someone talk to him in a long time, he wasn't sure how long exactly but it felt good now. It felt like a stream that was rinsing the dust off of his coat leaving him brighter and more alert, except not exactly because he was starting to doze off now.
Eventually Stiles realized she couldn't spend the whole day at her field. Although it might be cool to dig out the little tent and spend a whole night here, she could bring a video camera with night vision and tape what happened down by the stream at night. While she gathered up her things she wondered if Matt would let her borrow his camera, probably not –he was kind of a jerk.
The wolf felt distressed that she was leaving but he didn't whine. He wasn't sure why he wasn't whining but it seemed important. He trotted behind her back to the Jeep and it became harder not to whine. Then, when she pulled away he didn't chase the car. He had to dig his nails into the dirt road, but he didn't chase her. After all, she said she would be back.
The next week Stiles learned to set an alarm so she could leave the field in time to beat her father home from work. The sheriff noticed that her Jeep was often still ticking when he pulled in next to it but Stiles was happy and she was getting a lot of her homework done earlier than she ever had before. Of course getting all her homework done early and efficiently in the woods with no distractions was too good to last, on Thursday the wolf pouted when she pulled out her textbooks.
He actually grabbed a corner of her trig book and tried to tug it out of her hands. When she looked up at him he danced a little bit away from her and wagged his tail, then he ran a little farther and looked back at her over his shoulder.
"Walkies?" she asked. "Are you bored of watching me sit here now? Do you want to go on a walkie?"
The wolf barked, which sort of startled both of them because he was usually really quiet, and wagged his tail.
Stiles shoved her trig book back in her backpack. She saw the pistol and ignored it, following the wolf off into the woods. She wished that she hadn't promised her father she would bring the stupid thing every day, it meant she had to stop at home after school and pick it up but she usually grabbed a snack for Mr. Wolf so it wasn't too annoying. The thought of actually taking it out of her backpack made her feel sick to her stomach, it wouldn't even be loaded except she was pretty sure her dad was planning a pop inspection. Like one day he would have the cruiser parked next to her Jeep and he would demand to see the pistol and check if it was loaded, she could totally imagine him doing that. She hoped that Mr. Wolf would have the good sense to hide and not let himself be seen by her dad, especially not be seen leaning against her legs like a cat.
By the time Stiles had worked through that scenario a few times, what she would say, how Mr. Wolf would act, by the time she finally looked around beyond the jaunty tail that she was following Stiles felt a swooping horrifying sense of vertigo. She had no idea where she was.
Stiles froze and then lurched against a tree with a gasp. Mr. Wolf stopped immediately and scrambled over to her side. Stiles slid down the tree and buried her head between her knees. The wolf whined and scratched at her arm which was wrapped over her head.
It felt like forever to the wolf but finally the girl seemed to be able to lift her head again and look at him. Her face was wet with tears and her heart was still pounding. "Sorry boy," she said softly, "did I tell you that I get panic attacks? Hey, I get panic attacks. Especially when I suddenly notice that I'm totally lost in the woods."
The wolf cocked his head at her, lost? She thought she was lost? He sniffed at her and she laughed a little. It sounded wet to him and he longed to lick her face but he didn't.
Finally she stood up and the wolf turned around back the way they had come, Stiles smiled at him, "so we're not lost forever in the woods?" The wolf seemed to sigh before he carefully and slowly led her back to the tree where her backpack was. Stiles dug through for her water bottle and took a long drink. She put the water bottle back and took out her phone then turned back to the wolf, "okay, let's try this again. And I'll try to have a little more faith in you and your uncanny knowledge of the English language." The wolf looked at her and then quickly looked away, as if he was trying to pretend he didn't understand.
This trip Stiles tried to pay attention more and she noticed that the wolf glanced back more often, a 'still good?' look on his face. Stiles almost wondered if it was worth all this worry just to go for a walk but then they broke through the trees and she saw the gorgeous view the wolf had led her to. It was later than she thought and the sun was stretched far across the horizon making long shadows and warming up the rocks they were standing on.
"This is awesome," said Stiles. "Did your owner bring you here or something? Cuz it's kind of random for a weirdly tame and lucid wild animal to lead me to a place like this, unless I'm a Disney Princess or something and I don't think I am."
The wolf didn't make eye contact, he just stretched out and looked off majestically into the distance. When Stiles' alarm went off he led her back.
The next night was Friday of course and her dad did meet her at the Jeep with the casual suggestion of heading to the firing range together again. Mr. Wolf hid and wasn't seen.
Stiles was unusually perturbed that night while she thought about Mr. Wolf's recent behavior. On the one hand she was becoming really attached to the creature, to his quiet presence and the way he would look at her after she said certain things. It really was like he understood English. And she still hadn't figured out if he was a dog or a wolf or a hybrid, not that it mattered a lot to her -she felt safe either way, but maybe figuring that out would help her with the rest, with how he seemed to listen to her, with how a stray wolf dog thing was becoming her best friend. She tossed and turned in her bed for a long time thinking.
They had blown off grocery shopping last Saturday to pursue other interests so it was now dire that they go. And by the time Stiles and her dad got home it was raining and Scott was bored so she stayed home and played video games with him. "Allison is doing some family thing this weekend, her aunt and her grandfather came to visit. I don't know why it's all weekend, I get sick of my relatives after one dinner."
"I don't, I love your grandparents."
"Yeah, but your own make you crazy; that's my point, that your own family needs to be taken in small doses."
"It's just because my grandmother bursts into tears every time she lays eyes on me; that would be a buzz kill for anyone."
Scott sighed because it was true and he hadn't meant to bring it up. The sheriff would kill him if he found out. Stiles looked a lot like her mother, too much for Stiles to handle actually so she went out of her way to keep her hair too short and her clothes too androgynous. Stiles' grandmother felt like it was a desecration or something and would bring dresses and make up and all that stuff and they would fight and cry. Everyone hoped that someday it would get better but no one was sure how to get there.
He peered carefully at Stiles out of the corner of his eye, she seemed a little glassier than usual but nothing he couldn't fix. With a mischievous grin he shot her in the back, in the video game.
It rained all night and was still drizzly the next morning. Stiles had so many pagesof notes in her bio journal that she started transferring things to her wall, unfortunately it was the unofficial journal. The journal that she had started on the first day was the one she wrote in all the time, stories about Mr. Wolf and her usual babble. The journal that she was going to turn in at the end of next month had clinical forced observations that she dutifully wrote out every day. She did it first thing when she got to the field to get it over with and then buried that journal under the gun somewhere.
Her real journal, the one with her actual thoughts in it, had six new pages of notes on how to tell a hybrid dog from a real wolf. Stuck on her wall were enlargements of the photos she had taken of Mr. Wolf supporting the different differences. His ears were fuzzed out in a wolfy manner. His eyes were ambiguous, wolves were supposed to have yellow/brown eyes and Mr. Wolf was brown/green –sometimes kind of blue. He was smart enough to be a wolf but his behavior wasn't exactly right.
One thing that she wasn't sure about was if Mr. Wolf single tracked or walked like a dog, but that was something she could check out today. The ground was sure to be muddy and she could just find some tracks and take a picture. Easy peasy. Her dad had gone in to the office, because he was the sheriff and went in pretty much every day, so she wrote a quick note and grabbed her pack.
The ground was in fact really muddy; her boots were miles beyond artistically dirtied. And her palms were scraped up from slipping and grabbing trees to save herself, and yet Stiles persevered. There are a lot of weird statistics about how much more likely you are to get into a car accident near your house. Is it because you're usually near your house –having just left it or on your way back to it, or is it because you get used to your own neighborhood and don't pay as much attention as you should? For Stiles it was definitely a lack of paying attention.
She was walking along her usual path and grabbing on to a root to help her slide down a little to her usual tree when suddenly the root was moving right along with her, it felt like the whole world was moving with her and she slid down the embankment into the rocks and trees and pricker bushes below.
The wolf was snug in his little den, he had gone out briefly the day before to see if the girl was going to come or not and he was kind of relieved that she hadn't. Sitting in the rain and watching her didn't seem like fun, and yet if she had come to the field he was sure he would have sat and watched her. He was sure he wouldn't be able to just leave her there unwatched. The thought made his belly twist strangely.
The rain was lighter today so maybe she would come. He thought he heard her Jeep just then, sometimes he could hear it from his den. But he wasn't sure if he really heard it or was just thinking about hearing it and tricked himself. The wolf shook his head and decided to trot over to the field anyway, his belly also twisted when he thought about not going to check.
He was almost to the field when he heard the cracking and a rushing noise. The wolf himself had certainly never caused a mudslide but sometimes a deer did, or sometimes they just happened all on their own. He knew that it wasn't a deer who had caused this one and he ran like his tail was on fire.
The girl was down near the creek, her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving. The wolf snuffled her frantically and licked some of the mud away from her face, she still didn't move. He picked up his paw but he didn't want to scratch her. He could hear her heart beating and he could see her chest rising and falling. The wolf whined and paced in front of her.
Some of the stuff that had slid down the hill with Stiles was clogging up the brook and the wolf became aware of water rising up his legs. He needed to get the girl away from here, he needed to get her somewhere warm and dry and maybe use her phone to call 911 or something. He needed to.
Suddenly Mr. Wolf was gone and Derek was shivering as he stood there naked for the first time in a long time. He hoped that the girl didn't wake up now. In his human form he was able to think better and he saw that she looked mostly unhurt, at least none of her limbs were twisted at strange angles. He found a pretty big bump on her head when he checked though. His fingers felt strange as he ran them over her body, but he ignored it for now. Finally he was satisfied that he wouldn't hurt her worse if he tried to pick her up, and also the water had risen another few inches. Carefully he worked one arm under her knees and the other under her back; carefully he rose to his feet. Very carefully since he hadn't stood like this in a long time, and when it seemed safe enough he cradled her to his chest and looked around for the best path back to her Jeep.
She felt good in his arms, he couldn't stop thinking about how good. Even covered in mud and cold as she was, the weight felt right and the little puffs of air against his neck steadied him. He finally reached her Jeep and shifted her so that she was resting more against his shoulder and he could open the back door. It seemed very warm and dry and clean inside the little car. He had to half climb in to get her stretched out comfortably on the seat, well as best he could. In the little space behind the seat he found a cozy polar fleece blanket that he tucked around her.
And then he stood there, he wanted to climb in too but not naked and human like this. He wanted to climb in as the wolf and warm her up with his thick fur, clean off more of her face. He hesitated; if he stayed he would be here when she woke up and wondered how she had gotten back to her car. But if he was the wolf he wouldn't have to answer any of her questions.
Derek climbed in the backseat and crouched awkwardly while he closed the door securely, then he transformed back into a wolf and happily wriggled his way on to the tiny car seat next to his girl. He was slightly more on top of her than next to her but whatever, they fit. When he closed his eyes and tucked his nose in tight against her neck his belly didn't twist at all.
Stiles became aware of smell first; the mud and wet dog smells were completely overpowering. Then she recognized her Jeep and quietly tried to remember what had happened. Her whole body ached pretty badly but nothing was jumping out at her as broken or sprained, except maybe her head. Her hands were buried deep in Mr. Wolf's fur, he didn't seem to mind since she was probably keeping him from falling on the floor. He was just laying there calmly on top of her, probably not asleep but also not freaking out over being in her Jeep with the doors all closed. She tried to unclench her hands a little and they stung, they stung a lot, that seemed to remind her of slipping in the mud and grabbing trees, scraping her palms on the bark. She also remembered grabbing for that last root and then sliding down the hill to the brook.
That would explain why her clothes were caked in mud and why everything hurt. Somehow Mr. Wolf must have led her back to her car, because of course he led her everywhere anyway, and then she must have locked him in with her. Maybe she was nursing a small concussion here but it seemed plausible to her, she sighed in relief at having figured it out good enough and felt the wolf on her chest shift as her lungs expanded. It looked murky outside her window so she realized she should probably get going before her dad freaked out. At first the thought of sitting up seemed pretty horrific but as she lay there it almost felt like the pain was disappearing, which was not what she expected, it was supposed to feel worse as she became more awake.
The wolf whined a little, it sounded like he was asking her something. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks for keeping me warm Mr. Wolf. Sorry for locking you in here with me like a stuffed animal or something."
"Did I carry my pack back with me too?" she asked the wolf as she carefully shifted to sit up and look around. Her backpack was on the floor where Derek had shoved it when he placed her on the back seat. Maybe it had protected her back as she slid down the hill, it looked like it had judging by the big streak of mud.
Stiles wedged herself up a little straighter and the wolf scrambled to sit up himself down at the other end of the tiny bench. She reached down and hauled up the backpack, digging through it expertly to find her phone. It wasn't as late as she thought and there were no missed calls or messages. With a relieved sigh she pulled out her water bottle and took a long drink.
"Okay," she announced when she was done. "Okay, so I guess I'm okay to drive and I should get going. With any luck I can get home and shower before my dad notices I'm part swamp thing." Mr. Wolf made a whining noise.
"I'm not going to tell him, he might not let me come back and then I would get a terrible grade in biology. I mean yeah, boneheaded move there and I'm sure I almost really killed myself but I didn't, so no harm no foul. I just have to pick myself up, dust myself off and keep on keeping on." Mr. Wolf didn't look impressed with that plan.
"Hey, did you want to see what my house looks like?"
Mr. Wolf looked kind of embarrassed for her as he looked pointedly at the door handle. "Not so much huh? We have food you know, I could really go for some nice hot food now. Does that sweeten the pot for you?" His eyes told her that no it didn't, she was sure that if he could talk in words he would be saying something about it being him and not her and the importance of their friendship. She leaned over and opened the door for him, he didn't look back as he leaped out and ran away.
When Stiles climbed out herself to stretch and unstick her jeans enough so she could drive her hiking boots almost completely obliterated the footprints in the mud next to her door. She would have noticed them if she glanced down, they were too big to be her own feet and the person who left them hadn't been wearing shoes.