The Calm Before The Storm
Chapter One - The Calm
Even after all they'd been through together these last few months, Malia still avoids them.
She doesn't mean to be rude or petty or anything it's just that she can't stand the suffocating awkwardness that clogs her senses whenever she and Stiles are within a metre of each other. She's sure the only reason Scott hasn't said anything is because he's too polite, but she's not oblivious to the looks passed between the rest of the pack when they think she's not looking.
So she decides it's better for everyone if she just takes a step back.
It's surprisingly easier than she thought, since now there's no longer any important pack meetings (because as far as she's aware the Desert Wolfs locked up and the Dread Doctors long gone), and everyone's been so busy with school lately that pack catch ups are in short supply and whenever there is one she always find some way to avoid it. She's even worked up a list of excuses that either everyone believes or can't be bothered to argue.
Then slowly but surely everything starts to lull back to normal and Malia's actually generally surprised at how easy it becomes ignore all of the massive changes that happened. Like the fact that Kira's still gone, and that Mason still hasn't left his bedroom or the fact that she now sleeps in her own bed. But now with nothing left to distract from focusing on school she realises just how close graduation is and just how glaringly unprepared she is for that to happen.
So she joins a tutoring group.
She's not even sure what made her do it really. But ever since everything settled down she realised that without Stiles, or an imminent threat she really has nothing left to talk to the pack about. She never really connected with anyone apart from Stiles and Kira anyway. But now Kira's on the other side of the world doing whatever Skin Walker's do (and at this point Stiles might as well join her there) and without their company, she's actually surprisingly lonely. Besides she finds that she actually likes the people in her study group, most of whom are just blissfully ignorant to the (at times) glaringly obvious supernatural side of Beacon Hills like the rest of the town and struggling with this year's workload just as much as she is. One boy, Tom, said something about dyslexia and how he barely ever understands what his teachers are saying and Malia doesn't think she's ever related to someone more. But she's still new to this 'friend thing' and has had to bite her tongue once or twice in fear of blurting out something that she probably shouldn't, like how Marley always smells like desperation whenever she's working on a particularly difficult maths questions or that her favourite food is deer and that yeah she could go and catch one now for a snack if they really wanted. She still gets confused when Hayley and Vanessa giggle and asks her about boys and has to quickly stuff her claws in her jacket when James asks if it's true that she was admitted into Eichen House. Usually, though they just laugh at her bluntness and giggle about her 'sharp sense of humour', she decides that she likes this better though, instead of being reprimanded for her behaviour in public. Mainly though she likes that she has people to sit with lunch without having the unmistakable need to vomit or being able to share her less-than-stellar biology test scores without feeling pitied.
She actually surprises herself by how much she's been improving in school since joining the study group. Her dad particularly loves it as well because more often than not she brings home a study buddy for dinner rather than running off to 'who knows where' with that 'ADHD boy' like she used to. These days she spends most of her afternoons doing homework (of all things) or anything really that will take her mind off her newer and stronger Desert Wolf powers that further outcast her from the people she's trying so hard to fit in with. It isn't long before she finds out that actually doing homework instead of running after crazed killers does wonders for her grades (at one point she's pulled into her teacher's office and told cheating isn't the answer and that if she doesn't understand something to just ask). The day she receives her first B in a class she almost falls out of her chair. The crushing relief that maybe she's finally getting her normal life back is overwhelming and she has to physically stop blinking to stop unwanted and confusing tears falling down her face. She assures Lydia (while stuffing her results in her bag out of sight) that it's nothing and that she just can't wait to graduate so she never has to take another maths test again.
Later that night her dad sticks her result on the fridge and she's never felt so normal.
Her study group friends insist that they have to go out and celebrate and it's so weird to her to celebrate something that's not the defeat of a deadly foe that she's not sure she really wants to go. However after copious amounts of asking and pushing from both her new friends and her dad she somehow finds herself in a local diner talking about anything and everything not school related or (thank god) even remotely supernatural. She surprising enjoys the sense of normality of the whole thing more than she thought she would (but her claw still make an appearance under the table when they start to ask her about what colleges she's thinking of applying to). They even make a toast in her honour and laugh when she points out that it's still stupid to celebrate something as silly as a grade. They all start to leave around midnight and laugh and clap her on the back when she says no, she doesn't need a lift, because she's wants to take a run through the woods on her way home.
With the full moon a couple of days away and the air fresh and familiar she's never felt more at home, apart from perhaps Stiles bed.
She's in the middle of the woods and halfway home when she sees it, a loan shadow blending into the dark and solemn trees. She doesn't even need to see his face to know its Mason because she can smell the familiar, overwhelming stench of guilt and anxiety from where she's standing. She makes a point of telling him so when she sits down next to him but he just casts his eyes down and ignores her comment (just as she expected him to). She's a bit thrown off guard though when he asks what she doing out here, and she almost blurts out that she was going home and what's he doing out here. But before she can it hits her that this is one of those 'loaded questions' Stiles use to tell her about when people mean more than what they actually say and suddenly she's not sure what to say to him. Then she's thrown back to the last time she tried to comfort someone who smelled just like this and is filled with the sudden urge to flee before she says the wrong thing again. Instead, however, she takes a good look at him and it's almost as if she can see the burden that's hanging from his shoulders. And so she ends up telling him the only thing she knows for sure, that he's pack and you have to help your pack and never leave them behind. For a moment she sure she's said the wrong thing again and waits for him to look at her with that face (the face that still haunts her) and turn and leave her behind.
But he doesn't and his shoulders relax just that bit more and Malia thinks that maybe, this time, she actually has said the right thing.
At first, he doesn't really talk, so she shares her own past demons and all the mistakes she's made that have ended with people getting hurt and slowly he starts to share his own. She learns that Liam spends most of his time sitting outside Mason's door and that Mason spends most of his time crying into his pillow. She learns his phone is filled with unheard voicemails from Corey and his room is filled with rotting food he couldn't stomach. She still not really sure what to say to him because she's never been that great at talking about feelings or giving out advice but she's sure that after a while his stench starts to soften and his shoulders start to relax as if the weight that burdens them is starting to lessen.
And by the end of the night, he's the first person in the pack to know about her test results and she's the first person he's smiled to since the Dread Doctors.
Mason comes back to school the next day and Malia doesn't think she's ever seen Liam or Corey look happier. In fact, the sight of Mason sitting at a lunch table and actually eating makes her feel strangely happier and lighter than she thought watching someone scoff down Sloppy Joe could. And she feels as though a bit of the weight from her own shoulders starts to diminish and thinks that maybe now they could all go on and graduating and live their lives without Beacon Hills drawing them in and holding them back.
But maybe if she had known what was coming, what was out there, she would know never to think like that.
Author Note
I hope you'll like the direction the story is heading, though I haven't yet decided if I'm going to stick with what the Season Six trailer showed or what. So I'd really love to hear what you think so feel free to leave a review if you like. Also as a bit of a perfectionist I sometimes read back over chapters and make a few changes as I go along so just watch out for that.
Thanks for reading! :)