Jackson was waiting outside Hawthorne's office building right around the time school started. He sighed and pulled his jacket tighter around himself when he saw his therapist pull up in the parking lot. Hawthorne got out of her car grabbing her briefcase, "Jackson? Is everything okay?"
Jackson nodded as she walked closer, "Yeah, I was just wondering if I could talk to you about something."
"Of course." She said unlocking the office's front door and leading Jackson to her office. Hawthorne sat down behind her desk and took a sip of her coffee, "What would you like to talk about Jackson?"
The boy hesitantly sat down in front of the therapist, "Okay well, remember when you asked if I had a special someone?
Hawthorne nodded.
"Well, there is this one girl I just met… but see the thing is." Jackson paused before completely humiliating himself, "I- I can't talk to her."
Hawthorne's eye brow shot up and Jackson could see she was trying to curb the smirk on her face, "Go on."
Jackson took a deep breath before continuing, "See whenever I try to talk to her she looks at me and I just… I- I can't focus. And this has never happened to me before!"
Hawthorne nodded, "So what you're saying is that you feel nervous around this girl?"
"Yes, you have to help me."
Hawthorne squinted her eye, "How do you want me to help you?"
Jackson's mouth hung open, "You're a therapist, aren't you supposed to help me? Give me advice or something?"
Hawthorne sighed with a smile, "I am a therapist Jackson and I can give you advice. But I'm not here to help you pick up girls."
He leaned forward in his chair, "You don't understand, she's not just some girl. And… there's more."
The woman's eyes seemed to sparkle, "Go ahead,"
Jackson licked his lips, "She has secrets, things that she lies to people about, and I don't know how to make her trust me."
"How do you know she has secrets? Unless she's not very good at keeping them." Hawthorne said leaning back.
"I may have overheard a conversation she had with a friend."
Hawthorne's mouth opened in shock like Jackson had broken some kind of girl rule. Crap. He was screwed. "Jackson, while I cannot approve of eavesdropping, I will help you. What's her name?"
"Raleigh, her name is Raleigh." Hawthorne smiled and Jackson lied in expert fashion. Hey he was Jackson Whittemore right? "When I was listening to her I found out that she lied about some stuff about her parents. And it seems like she has a good reason for it, I-I don't really know what to do."
Hawthorne glanced at her door then back to Jackson, speaking in a low voice, "Okay Jackson I'll help you out if you promise to be this open at our appointments."
"Fine."
"If Raleigh is keeping secrets from you and with good reason then the only thing you can do is be there for her." Hawthorne paused, "The thing about secrets is that no one can keep one forever, and when everything comes crashing down around people who have secrets the only thing they want is someone who believes in them. So if you really want to win this girl over, you don't need to talk to her. Someone used to keeping secrets will want someone to listen. And if you listen to Raleigh, Jackson, she may just open up to you."
Jackson stared at Hawthorne, he didn't know why he felt so surprised but the woman did make complete sense. Damn, shrinks were smart. He jumped up and shook her hand before running out to his Porsche, he sped his way over to the school. He got there just in time for Chemistry class.
Jackson was out of breath by the time he made it to the classroom and sat in his usual seat beside Stiles, who was grinning at him. Danny sat at the table in front of him looking back, "Hey, Jackson are you okay? You missed morning practice."
Jackson glanced around the room looking for Raleigh, not here yet. He looked back at Danny, "Yeah, I'm fine just had some stuff to take care of."
Danny shrugged turning away, he waved his arm, "Hey, Raleigh!"
Jackson looked up, his heart froze again, Raleigh was walking through the doorway smiling at Danny who was waving her over to his table. Jackson looked to Stiles expectantly, making the smaller teen grab his things and slam them down onto the table right as Raleigh reached for the chair. All three kids looked at Stiles who had literally thrown himself in the seat beside Danny.
"Stiles, are you okay?" Raleigh asked with big eyes.
Stiles shrugged and threw his hands behind his head, "No, yeah, I just wanted to sit next to Danny today" He glanced at the boy, "We're gonna talk about our boyfriends and stuff." Raleigh nodded trying not to laugh. "You can sit next to Jackson though!"
Jackson and Raleigh made eye contact. "Yeah okay." Raleigh said sitting next to Jackson taking her notebook out. Raleigh did most of the little talking between them, she explained how negative and positive ions reacted to each other a vise versa. Jackson just watched Raleigh and nodded. By the end of the class Mr. Harris assigned all the students a joint project with their partners. The students had to create a diorama of a common polyatomic negative ion, using steel coat hangers, markers and Styrofoam balls. As the supplies were passed out Raleigh spoke.
"Hey, do you guys want to come over to my place after school? We can work on the project and I'll order Chinese?" She asked looking at Stiles, Jackson and Danny.
"Totally." Danny said, "We can meet up after school in the parking lot."
Stiles beamed at Jackson and Raleigh, "Yeah of course, that sounds like fun. Like fun fun emphasis on fun, right Jackson?"
Raleigh looked to Jackson, of course he couldn't say no. He smirked his usual smirk, "Of course." She looked at him like she had last night. "Oh, I'm sorry do I still look smug?"
Raleigh smiled, "Yeah, it's kinda all in this area." She said gesturing to his whole face with her finger. While Jackson and Raleigh laughed Stiles and Danny shared a look.
"Is what I think is happening, actually happening?" Danny asked.
Stiles nodded with a sneaky grin, "Oh, yes it is."
Danny shook his head, "Yeah but Jackson doesn't like… no offense to Raleigh but, girls like Raleigh."
"Maybe Raleigh's special."
Danny and Stiles both watched the love birds in silence until the bell rang and they all became scarce.
For Jackson English couldn't have ended sooner and he found himself standing by his Porsche as the students trickled out of the school. He spotted Raleigh walking with Stiles and Danny and he waved at them.
Raleigh's mouth dropped open when she saw his Porsche, "Holy shit dude this is your car? No wonder you look so smug all the time!"
Jackson smiled feeling proud, "Want a ride?"
Raleigh scoffed and dangled keys from her finger, "Sadly I brought my POS jeep, so no need. You guys know where my apartment is right?" She asked climbing into said POS jeep.
The boys nodded and Danny got to his car following Raleigh leaving Jackson and Stiles standing together. Stiles was wearing a shit eating grin. "Isn't this exciting? Friends hanging out, eating food, and doing school work."
Jackson rolled his eyes at Stiles and the boys separately drove the mile and a half trip to Raleigh's apartment. As both boys made their way up to Raleigh's apartment they passed the Chinese delivery boy on his way down. When they got to the top of the stairs they found that Raleigh's door was open. Jackson closed the door behind them and they both stared at the lush surroundings of Raleigh's home. The whole floor was black marble the counters of her kitchen they walked through and parts of the wall. The walls were painted dark purple in the living room with a creamy soft carpet, where they found Danny and Raleigh sitting in the floor with their books and a bag full of Chinese.
There was also a comfy looking black couch and love seat and a large table in front of the couch as well as a huge flat screen TV mounted to the wall. "Holy crap, your apartment is amazing!" Stiles said walking into the room with Jackson on his heels. Raleigh smiled as the two boys sat down next to her and Danny.
"Thanks, you guys hungry?" She asked offering them both boxes of food.
They ate first talking about boyfriends and Jackson kept quiet, Danny talked about his exes and Stiles talked about Derek. When Stiles asked Raleigh if she had any exes or a current boyfriend the girl smiled and shook her head, "Oh, no I'm not really relationship material." She'd chuckled. Jackson took that as a no, plus he smirked remembering what Raleigh had admitted in the alley when she thought she was going to die.
Then they started to work on their projects, Stiles and Danny making Perchlorate and Jackson and Raleigh doing Arsenate because the girl had claimed it was her favorite.
The teens had bent the coat hangers into shape and had the right sized Styrofoam balls in all the right places but when they got around to coloring the balls in they got distracted. Stiles had marked on Danny declaring war between the two, then Stiles had marked on Raleigh, provoking the girl to tackle the boy, hold him down and write My boyfriend's Hot on his forehead. When Stiles looked in the mirror they all laughed. Danny then asked Raleigh to write on him, so she wrote My ex is a Jerk onto Danny's forehead.
"Okay now you have to do Jackson!" Stiles claimed loudly.
Raleigh looked at Jackson, "What do you say?"
Jackson tried to keep a straight face but he ended up laughing and nodding. He closed his eyes as she leaned close to him, her arm grabbing onto his shoulder. He breathed in her scent and his wolf whined inside. Jackson heard his Mate giggle a little before pulling away way too fast. He opened his eyes to see Raleigh laughing at him, Jackson looked in the mirror and narrowed his eyes.
"'Smug Bastard?'" Stiles read off Jackson forehead barely holding back his laughter.
Jackson looked back at Raleigh and eyed the marker, "Your turn."
Raleigh squealed when Jackson took the marker and wrote Mine on her forehead, and when she looked in the mirror she gasped, "Dude, you claimed my forehead?"
Jackson laughed when Stiles spoke up, "Hey you claimed mine!"
Raleigh shot Stiles a hard look, "Hey you started this Marky Mark!"
The sound of Danny busting out laughing infected the entire room. When it finally subsided Raleigh realized her phone was ringing, "Hello?" She asked with a happy sigh of laughter while all the boys sat back down. Jackson could hear the woman on the other end.
"Raleigh, it's Faith. We've got a problem."
Jackson watched out of the corner of his eye as Raleigh's face went blank, "What's up?"
"Harkess was the one behind Sasha's death , she was onto him Raleigh. He's at Wynter's compound and we think he's gonna blow it with everyone inside. There's an abandoned airstrip about five miles away from you, I'm sending you GPS. Be there in thirty I'm picking you up, bring your baby. Sorry girl, but you're going back." Faith spoke like an Military general.
"I'll be there."
"Roger. Out."
Jackson watched as Raleigh hung up the phone, her heart started racing, and Jackson could smell the fear rolling off of her. Raleigh looked right back at him and Jackson could have sworn she looked like she might cry. "Sorry guys, but I have to go somewhere. So you're going to have to let yourselves out." Raleigh said picking up the markers and putting dots on the Styrofoam, "Jackson all you have to do is color these in and we'll make an A." She said sticking a marker in her mouth. Danny and Stiles cleared out and Raleigh handed Jackson their color coded almost finished project.
He swallowed, "Hey, Raleigh."
She looked up at him slightly.
"If you want to talk or something when you get back from wherever you're going, just call me okay." He said writing his phone number on the inside of Raleigh's arm with a marker.
Raleigh looked taken aback, "Thank you Jackson, that's really nice of you."
He smirked smugly at her before walking away, "Take care of my forehead."
Raleigh scowled at Jackson until she heard the door shut. Like lightening she rushed to her closet pulling out some clothes and a black duffel bag. Harkess killed Sasha? Anger and fear burned inside of her. Sasha had been one of Raleigh's closest friends, and Harkess had been a mentor to Raleigh. Everything she staked her reputation on had come from Harkess' training. How could he have done this to Raleigh?
She swallowed setting the items on her bed, she kneeled throwing back her cover. Raleigh reached under her bed pulling out her baby. A Beretta M501 Sniper rifle made custom just for her, she sighed and bit her lip. "Let's go to work."
