Chapter 3

Scott POV

Leaning against the side of the Sheriff's SUV, Scott feels his phone buzz in his pocket. Pulling it out, he looks down at a text from Kira:

*Lydia & I have been all thru the hospital. We don't recognize any of the people brought here from Eichen & nobody seems to know anything about what happened….Any luck on your end?*

Scott glances over to see Stiles, just inside the caution tape, in what looks to be a heated argument with his dad, arms flailing and all. Scott punches out a quick reply to his girlfriend:

*No. We've been here an hour, they're not letting us through. The sheriff isn't budging on this one. We have no idea if Peter is still in there or not.*

*Do you want us to head over there?*

*Wouldn't do any good. You guys should just head home. That's probably what I'm about to do. I'll just see you at school. Love you.*

*Ok. Be safe. And love you too.*

I look up to see Stiles heading towards me, grumbling about his dad being a pain in the ass, or something along those lines.

"Was that Kira?" he asks.

"Yeah, her and Lydia didn't find anything. I told them just to head home and get some sleep. We probably should do the same, it's 2 AM already and we've got school."

"Fine. Go home. I'll figure it out myself then," he almost shouts in my face.

"Dude, there's nothing more for us to do here. Don't you see that? We're not going to be able to get in there. Nobody is going to tell us anything. Honestly, let's just let your dad do his job and get out of his way for once."

Stiles opens his mouth like he's about to go off again, but then shuts it, clearly deciding otherwise.

"You're right buddy, as always," he says, "let's get outta here. We can deal with this tomorrow."

I smile and relax a bit, thinking, that wasn't so hard. It usually takes me hours to get him away from this stuff. We both hop into the jeep and start heading towards my street.

I look over to Stiles. His expression is hard to read, he's gotten better over the years about masking his feelings, but I can still feel the exhaustion seeping off of him.

"So," I tentatively start, "Malia. That was a big shock. I thought she was really getting along well here and everything."

"If you're wondering if I knew she was planning this, no, I didn't."

That is part of what I was thinking actually, Stiles and Malia's relationship had always seemed a little odd to me, but I had been sure there was more to it than what we could all see. Maybe I was wrong.

"Are you okay?" I ask him.

He pauses before answering, "Yeah, I'm fine. I mean, I kinda always knew this would happen if she ever got any solid information on her mother. I just thought she'd at least wait to leave until after graduation. I don't blame her for leaving though. And it was time, for us, I mean."

"So I'm guessing you guys broke up as well?"

"Scott, I don't think she's coming back."

"What do you mean she won't come back? Not even after finding her mother?"

"I don't know, man. I just don't see it happening. This life," he motions with his hands, "it wasn't for Malia. Everyone knew that."

"But you guys. I thought you guys loved each other? Isn't that enough? You seem half okay with her leaving, possibly for good…did you even put up a fight about it when she came to tell you? You just let her go that easily?"

Stiles sighs. "Scott, we didn't have what you and Kira have. Don't get me wrong, I really care about Malia, possibly more than anyone else in her life, you know that. I love her, I'm just not in love with her, you know? And for letting her go so easily, I respect her enough to not get in the way of her making her own decisions. Please, believe me when I tell you, it's going to be okay."

I let it go after that, there's really nothing more to be said. It'll be hard getting used to her not being here, but Stiles was the closest to her and if he's okay with it, I guess we all will be too. I can't help but sense the feelings of sadness coming off of Stiles, but for some reason I have a hard time believing it is Malia leaving that's causing it. But I don't want to press him any further, he's already on edge with everything going on.

Stiles drops me off at home and says goodnight. We have third period together, so I'll find out if his dad told him anything else about Eichen then. I unlock the door and step into the dark kitchen, placing my keys on the empty hooks beside the door. Mom must still be at the hospital, with all the new patients coming in, I thought. I drag myself upstairs to my room and flop onto my bed. In a matter of minutes I am fast asleep.

Lydia POV

I walk into third period English and go to sit down next to Scott, who is impatiently tapping his foot. As soon as he spots me, he says, "Have you seen Stiles this morning?"

"No," I say, "he wasn't in Physics with me first period. I just assumed he overslept, that's his usual excuse anyways, but he's typically here by now at least."

"Well, he's still not here," he says, gesturing to the empty seat in front of him, "and I swear to God he better not have went back out after dropping me off this morning."

I sigh. I couldn't quite figure Stiles out these days. He's late to school at least a couple times a week and says he overslept, but for some reason he always looks so tired, like he had barely gotten any sleep. He assures us he sleeps just fine, I highly doubt it though. And he just does not seem to care about school at all, which is weird because he was always helping Malia with school work. Why care about her succeeding and not himself? He's just lucky that he's smart enough to get by without studying, or else he'd probably be failing by now.

"Oh," Scott adds, "I just thought you should know, because I'm fairly certain Stiles won't bring it up, but he told me this morning that he didn't think Malia was coming back. Like ever."

"Seriously? How could he know that? What even happened really?"

"I don't know the details, you'd have to ask him yourself. But from what he told me, it sounded like it was just a matter of time."

"How is he?" I ask, trying not to sound too anxious, I just want him to be okay.

"Surprisingly, he seems just fine, about that anyways. I don't know what else is going on with him, but I don't think it has anything to do with Malia."

We are both left to ponder that as class begins without any sign of Stiles. I see Scott typing out a text, probably to Stiles, under his desk. I faintly wonder how many times he has texted Stiles this morning. I personally stopped texting asking where he was after the fourth time he was late. I figure he knows what he's doing, doesn't need us bothering him about it. Though, Stiles and I didn't have much correspondence at all these days.

I see Scott look back down at his phone, reading a text he just got and then instantly responding back. I don't know for sure if it's Stiles but I can't help but feel a pang of jealousy, wishing he had texted me instead.

My thoughts are jerked back to what's going on when suddenly the teacher is passing out a pop quiz from last night's reading. Dammit. Forgot to do that reading. I look over and see Scott's alarming expression as he reads the questions on the quiz, apparently he forgot too. Fortunately, I'd at least read this book years ago, but I felt bad for Scott. I knew his grades were picking up after everything supernatural had slowed down and he was able to focus on school more. Our chaotic alternate lives sometimes caused school to be thrown by the wayside. And here it was, just one small supernatural instance and it was already proving its affect.

The door pushes open just then, and Stiles comes rushing through in his trademark spastic way. Our teacher was just walking back up towards the front of the room, and so she hands Stiles a quiz as he walks by.

"I'll have to mark you as late, but, lucky for you Stilinski, you showed up just in time for our pop quiz. I hope you're ready," the teacher says.

Stiles mumbles something incoherently and moves to sit down in his chair. Scott looks up, but doesn't say anything, and Stiles simply sits down and begins frantically filling out the quiz. His movements are not in the least bit lethargic, but I can see the deep colored circles under his eyes, evidence of little or no sleep. I make a mental note to bring up his poor sleep habits later and then refocus my attention to my quiz.

I don't see Stiles again until lunch and as I sit down at our table, I can tell that whatever energy he had from this morning was quickly fading as he rested his head on his hand.

I had beaten everyone else there, it was just Stiles and I, and so I had possibly a couple minutes before the others showed up.

I slam my books down on the table to get his attention, it worked, his head jerking up abruptly.

"What the hell…"

"What's going on with you?" I ask calmly.

"What do you mean, what's going on with me? I just overslept this morning. No big deal."

"You say that every single time. I know you're not sleeping. So what's going on, really?"

"And why do you care all of a sudden if I'm not sleeping?"

I falter, trying and failing to come up with a response to that. I always care about you, I think. But I can't tell him that. Not yet anyways. I'm still coming to terms with my own feelings towards Stiles, and now is not the place or time to let those feelings be known. Especially after he just broke up with Malia.

We both just look at each other for a minute before Stiles speaks again.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I just, I'm tired and I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I stayed out too late last night trying to figure out more about what happened."

"And…" I probe.

"And it was totally worth it," he smiled, "I found out through my dad that Peter is still detained in Eichen House."

"Well, that's good news, I guess. But still. You could have went to bed and found that out today from your dad. You didn't need to be there all through the night. It wasn't necessary."

He smiles again, more sheepishly this time, "I know. I just like to be there when everything's going on."

I smile back. I couldn't fault him for that, it was just his nature. He loves this investigative stuff. It's clearly his passion and that is why he's going to do so well with a career in law enforcement.

Scott and Kira show up just then. Scott still seems pissed off, Stiles confirmed to him after English that he did go back to Eichen House after dropping Scott off. I'm a little surprised Stiles didn't try to lie to him about it, but I think Stiles was more concerned about the Peter information than he was about keeping up his cover about his sleep habits.

"So what's next then? Now that we know Peter is still there, do we set up a time we can go talk to him? Well, not me personally because of the mountain ash, but you know what I mean," Kira says.

"I guess that would be our next move…" Scott offers.

Stiles cuts in, "Unfortunately, I think that'll be rather difficult at the moment. My dad said Eichen House would have increased security over the next couple days."

"We could probably wait a few days," I say, "I don't think whatever's going on is an immediate threat. Honestly, the scream could've been a false alarm."

"I don't know that we want to take the chance that it's not a false alarm. We still need to do something," Stiles says.

"But what?" Scott asks.

The four of us sit there in silence, lost in our own thoughts.

"Do you guys want to get together tonight and order some pizza? Get a couple of movies? Remember our old pack movie nights? It is Friday, after all. We can all keep thinking about this and discuss it further tonight if anyone has any ideas. Does that sound good?" Kira suggests.

We all are in agreeance. Scott says he'll catch up with Liam at lacrosse practice tonight and update him on what's going on.

Funny enough, as long as it's been since the supernatural has taken over our lives, we barely ever get together and hang out as a group. I don't know why that is, I guess we all got so caught up with our own lives, trying to figure out how to adjust to a normality.

I nervously glance at each of my friends, wondering who it was that I screamed for. I put on a good front and try to blow it off to everyone else, hoping I'll convince myself it was just a false alarm. But I can't help but fight the feelings of dread inside of me. I don't think I could survive another friend dying.

Tonight will be good. Maybe we won't even talk about Eichen House or Peter or me screaming. But even so, this life has become so attached to each of us personally that we find it harder and harder to escape. I don't know if any of us ever will escape it. Or if we'd even want to.

Maybe tonight will be normal, or as normal as we can hope to be after all this time.