Lydia's a ridiculously supportive girlfriend; she wants her man at his best, at all times. If that means getting up early and staying late to cheer him on at practice, than by God that's what she's going to do. While watching the boys run is sort of entertaining (and she gets a secret pleasure from watching Jackson take down whoever's on the opposing side), it does get . . . lonely. Which is fine, as long as she's got two new friends who failed to please her. In repentance for ditching her annual start of school party well before it was over, Meredith's sitting next to the redhead, a large travel mug of coffee not too far from her. Allison would've been right beside her on that bench, if the pale girl hadn't spent two whole afternoons shopping with Lydia. All Merry had to do was attend an early practice and cheer Jackson on at Saturday's game, cheesy signs included. (If Allison wasn't "dating" Scott, she'd be cheering for Lydia's boyfriend, too.)
Not that Meredith had been planning on skipping this practice. Scott and his nosy friend have been avoiding the hell out of her - and rather effectively, too. The pair were always the last ones in and the first ones out of english, the only class she shared with either one. At lunch, Lydia kept her practically chained to the lunch table, saying she wouldn't lose "another one" to Scott McCall.
Meredith heaves a sigh, tilts her head back, and glares at the sun high above through the tinted lenses of her sunglasses. The light streaming down on her is barely warm; a sure sign of the coming winter. The brunette gets comfortable, and sips at her coffee to keep the chill at bay. Lydia's chattering on about Jackson's future as a pro-lacrosse player. Merry's sure it's interesting, but then again how many professional lacrosse player does she know? She doesn't even know that much about the game, to be honest. To keep peace, she makes vague noises of agreement, all the while enjoying the last of the sun. It's pretty relaxing, actually; right up until Lydia lets out a piercing scream.
Startled, Meredith tears the glasses from her face and watches as her friend scrambles down the bleachers. From her vantage point, she can see a body rolling around in the grass. Two figures are rushing away from the scene. Just across the field, a figure in black surveys the incident. If she squints, she can just make out her brother's features. He jerks his head in the direction Dumb and Dumber had raced off in. Groaning, she snatches up her bag and follows Derek's silent order.
The deep growling coming from the locker room can be heard down the hallway. Merry shudders at the werewolf's obvious rage, and wishes Derek had just come and taken care of the problem himself. But since it's up to her, she squares her shoulders and clutches the bags of powdered herbs from Friday closer. As she has no desire to get closer than necessary to a raging wolf, she has a vague plan of locking him inside with the powdered mountain ash without Scott even realizing it. And then she hears the other voice pleading with the Beta. Of course Stiles had thought it the best idea to follow a pissed off supernatural creature into a confined space.
Now she's creeping down the short hallway leading into the locker room proper, back flush against the wall. She can't even believe she's considering risking her life for this idiot. Peering carefully around the corner, she's quick to yank her head back when something scrabbles against the other side of the wall.
Apparently not that willing to sacrifice herself. The noise is quick to stop, although a constant, loud "woosh" sound replaces it. Sneaking a glance around the corner again, Meredith is kind of preparing herself to see little bits of Stiles strewn around the room. She wonders how well her brother'd take it. Instead, she's mildly surprised when it's Scott collapsed on a bench, dripping with condensation. Stiles had sprayed him with a fire extinguisher. Definitely one of the more creative ways she's seen a rampaging werewolf distracted.
Meredith takes a deep breath, and is just about to reveal herself when the two start talking, voices low.
"Stiles - what happened?" Scott asks, confusion and pain evident in his tone.
"You tried to kill me." His friend answers, completely nonchalant. "It's like I told you before; it's the anger, it's your pulse rising. It's a trigger." At least someone did their homework, she thinks briefly.
"But that's lacrosse! It's a pretty violent game if you haven't noticed!" the werewolf whines, getting louder already.
"It's gonna be a lot more violent if you end up killing someone on the field. You can't play Saturday." Stiles decides, voice firm. "You're gonna have to get out of the game."
"I'm first line." The way Scott says it almost makes Meredith feel bad. It's not like he asked for the bite, after all.
"Not anymore." the taller boy counters.
The conversation's apparently over, judging by the shuffling of feet and rustle of clothes.
"Or you can let Derek help you." she says, stepping out from the hallway. Merry leans casually against the wall, as if she hadn't just eavesdropped on the whole little episode.
Both boys are obviously startled by her sudden appearance, Stiles noticeably more so. Scott merely jerks back, but the other teen physically jumps away from her, landing with a painful thump against the metal lockers.
"How the hell - why didn't you smell her, asshole?" he shouts at Scott, giving the other boy a shove on the shoulder.
"I don't know! She's been a werewolf a lot longer than I have, why don't you try asking her that!" his friend yells back, flinging a hand out to point at the smirking girl.
Merry pushes off the wall and saunters closer to the two boys. "I'm not a wolf, F-Y-I." she spells out, "And you can thank the chemicals from the extinguisher for blocking your special wolfy senses."
The two share a brief, confused look before Stiles gives a dramatic shake of his head, arms making an x-figure in front of his chest.
"No! No way! You and your serial killer brother need to leave us the hell alone!" he practically shouts ("My brother's not a murderer," she mutters under her breath). "Scott and I can control this thing just fine. Right Scott?" here he turns crazy eyes to his best friend.
The shaggy-haired kid shifts awkwardly. "Stiles, maybe I should at least try it his way."
Meredith smiles widely, and doesn't give him a chance to change his mind. "Great choice, Scott! I can't promise he's the most patient man, but my brother'll definitely try his best to keep you safe." Then she flounces out of the locker room, floral dress swishing against bare legs. As soon as the heavy door slams shut behind her, Stiles turns to Scott with a betrayed look on his face.
"You're gonna trust Derek freakin' Hale over me? Your best friend of how many years?"
"Stiles, no, I just wanted to get rid of her." Scott defends. "But she has a point - I almost killed you just now!" he throws his hands up in the air in frustration. "And I probably broke Jackson!"
Stiles rolls his eyes, "Who cares about Jackass," he snorts before growing serious again. "But you didn't kill me because I stopped you."
The shorter teen rubs the back of his neck. "We gotta figure something else out, dude. I can't keep losing it on the field."
"We'll do it, Scott we will." Stiles sighs. "In the meantime, you can't play Saturday."
XO
The next day, Scott and Stiles are still avoiding her. Merry's not exactly pleased with that; she figured, what with him at least giving Derek a chance, they'd try and make nice in school. Especially since she's kind of friends with his girlfriend.
So she grins and bears it; doesn't take their avoidance personally. It's only been a day since Scott's accepted Derek, after all. The day inches by painfully slow. It's broken up briefly when Lydia starts showing off Allison to any and every available lacrosse player. Where Allison sees it as the redhead being a good friend (which she is, sort of, in her own way), Merry recognizes the smug look on her pretty face whenever Scott happened to be around for these interactions. He happened to be in eyesight each and every time, without fail. Since he didn't look ready to rip someone apart, Meredith simply takes enjoyment from his annoyed features.
Whatever the queen bee's end game is, it doesn't matter once school ends. She's grabbing books from her locker when Lydia sweeps up to her, Allison in tow.
"We're making signs this afternoon." the redhead declares, large purse swung over one delicate shoulder. "Meet up at my place by four. After we'll grab dinner." Smiling as if she's just solved world hunger, the queen sashays away.
When Allison doesn't follow immediately after her, Meredith raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "Need something, Allison?"
The brunette hesitates before a determined glint appears in her eyes. "Yeah, actually. Um, earlier, Scott was being really - weird."
Meredith snorts, "As if that's anything new." Inside she's panicking because what if the Argent girl is putting things together? What if she's figuring out her new beau is something she's destined to kill?
"He was asking about - about Derek, actually. Acting really shady, you know?" the other girl presses. "Is there a reason he'd tell me to stay away from both you and your brother?"
Merry closes her locker with a little more force than necessary. "Look, Allison; my brother is a big boy. I don't keep tabs on him. If he and Scott got into some macho pissing match, then I don't know about it. And I have no idea why he'd take an issue with me, because of something between him and Der." She grips the strap of her bag so tightly, her knuckles are turning white. She prays that Allison doesn't notice.
"I know we're not the best of friends, but - you'd warn me if there was something bad going on and you knew about it, right?" Allison asks, eyebrows creased in concern.
"No, I'd let you put yourself in danger." Meredith answers, giving her a sarcastic look. "Any more strange questions for me?"
She gives Merry a grateful smile, relief evident on her face, before moving to link arms with her. A little weirded out, Meredith allows it, if only to keep up appearances. "Good to know! Did you want to carpool to Lydia's? These gas prices are killing my wallet."
The shorter girl is about to say no, that she's got to stop by her place and pick up some stuff, when she notices Allison's jacket. Not the one on her back, the one she wore to school that morning, but the lighter black blazer in her arms. It looked like the one she had worn Friday night, the one she had conveniently "forgotten" in Derek's backseat. And he hadn't given it to Meredith to give back, and there's no way he did it himself, so . . . This didn't feel right at all.
"Uh, sure. Let's take my car."
OX
hellooo! this is noticeably shorter than last chapter; originally i was going to try and cram the whole episode in one chapter but it was getting to be too much in one shot, you know? so here we have approximately half of the second episode; or at least, what meredith affects/causes. this is also the first time i took dialogue straight from the script which was not exactly a fun thing.
you wanna know what else SUCKS? trying to figure out teen wolf's timeline. as far as i can tell, the beginning of e2 right up until the end of scott's attack on stiles occurs right after the pilot but then the next day is friday? judging by derek's visit that night and then scott's visit to finstock in the next scene. so yeah it's all a little jumbled; for this story's sake scott apologizes monday morning and then we skip to thursday (aka this chapter,) for the first lacrosse practice.
hopefully you guys enjoy enough to leave a review! :) (that's not a hint. at all.)
tor