Sitting in the middle of Scott McCall's dining room rather cordially with Stiles Stilinski was certainly not something she could have predicted. They had fallen into a deceptively comfortable silence, despite the fact that it wasn't really silent and the air was being filled by the sound of their canine friend upstairs.

Stiles had set his phone on the table between them, blasting music in an attempt to drown out Scott's thrashing and vague threats of violence every now and then.

For all her overthinking and proclivity to live out situations in her own mind, Annie couldn't have ever predicted this outcome. The way the pair sat calmly (or rather, relatively, calmly) in the werewolf's home while he screamed and growled was a circumstance she hadn't seen coming. She knew they'd need to work together but she imagined a lot more tension. Then again, perhaps she underestimated the necessity of teamwork when it came to corralling a young werewolf.

A part of her was still screaming into the abyss, of course. She felt responsible for both Scott and Stiles no matter how blasé about it she tried to act. Tonight's success rode on how well she could guide the two of them through what was clearly shaping up to be a particularly rough full moon. And so far, so good - but she was cautious to let herself be lulled into a false sense of security.

Using the end of his pen, Stiles scratched at his hairline as he stared down at his textbook with narrowed eyes. "Hey, what'd you put for 21?"

"Endoplasmic reticulum." Came the immediate response.

Stiles let out a hum. "Really? I thought it was the Golgi body."

"You thought wrong." She said without looking up, continuing to scribble down her answers as her eyes scanned across her textbook.

She heard Stiles mumble to himself, but she could make out the way he was mocking her, making her roll her eyes. "Mature." She mumbled back. She lifted her free hand to prop her head up, letting her chin rest in her palm but also using it doubly to hide the half-smile that was playing on her lips.

This was strange but Annie found herself not… hating it. Sitting and doing homework and trading dumb little barbs with another teenager. It felt like it was this weird little faux-normalcy taking hold of that moment in time. They spent some time like that. Just doing homework in the sham-silence, only breaking it to ask each other questions about an assignment or two.

But it was maybe another half hour into the night when Stiles interrupted the flow of things. Annie didn't pay much attention to Stiles at first, as he got up and moved around the kitchen, seemingly searching for something. It took several minutes of him rummaging loudly before Annie rolled her eyes and lifted her head. "What?" She asked shortly.

Stiles shook his head, waving his hand at her as though to shoo her attention away. "I'm looking for something. I thought I put it in my backpack but I think I threw it into the bag with all the chains."

"Which is currently in the same room as a pissed off Scott." She pointed out, her eyebrows raising as she leaned back in the chair.

He huffed, his shoulders slumping as he kept his back facing her. "I'm well aware, thanks. It's fine, more convenient for me anyways." He muttered.

He grabbed his half-drunk, terribly crumpled up, plastic water bottle from off the table where it had been sitting sadly and walked past her, making her swivel in her seat to keep him in her line of sight. "Well, I'll be back. I'm sure he's parched." He spoke, an innocent tone wrapping around his words as he began inching out of the kitchen.

She watched him with narrowed eyes. "Stiles, I don't think it's a good idea to antagonize him." She warned, lifting her pen up in warning.

"I won't antagonize him, don't worry." He said flippantly, waving his free hand as though to physically wave away her concern. He proceeded to ignore the way she looked at him, scrutinizing his every move until he turned the corner and went up the stairs.

There were several minutes of silence where she simply sat still, straining to hear any indication that Stiles was doing the exact thing she told him not to do.

And it wasn't long until she was proven right.

She jumped at Scott's sudden yell of "I'm gonna kill you!" accompanied by a loud clanging sound. Jumping from her seat, she ran through the living room and up the stairs, taking them two at a time before skidding to a stop in front of Scott's room, eyes wide and alert.

Her gaze fell upon a small dog bowl thrown on the ground, Scott etched onto it in messy black ink.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" She screeched at the stunned human, pulling him away from a snarling Scott and out into the hall. She fell against the wall just across from Scott's door frame, Stiles right beside her. "The fuck happened to 'I won't antagonize him', huh, dumbass?" She breathed heavily and placed a hand on her forehead. "Shit, man." She murmured.

Stiles was breathing heavily as well, but it wasn't from panic or fatigue. It was clearly from anger. He stormed back into the room, ignoring Annie's sound of indignation. He rounded on Scott, lifting an angry finger to point at him.

"You kissed her, Scott. Okay? You kissed Lydia. That's, like, the one girl that I ev-" He paused to let out a huff of frustration. "And, you know, the past three hours I've been thinking that - oh, 'it's probably just the full moon, you know? He doesn't even know what he's doing and tomorrow, he'll be totally back to normal. He probably won't remember what a complete dumbass he's been. A son of a bitch, a fucking unbelievable piece of shit friend.'"

All this relationship drama seemed so ridiculous when she compared it to everything else they were dealing with. On the one hand, she understood. Really, what was the hardest thing these kids had to deal with? Failing a class? Crushes? What seemed small and insignificant to her was really all these lucky, privileged teens had to experience in their lives.

In a way, that was what it should've been like. They were supposed to be normal human teens, and for that Annie envied them. But they - especially Scott and Stiles, if he chose to stick around - needed to learn that bigger things were at stake than their romantic status.

Annie shook her head. "Stiles, what he did was a shit thing but right now your unfortunate love lives don't mean anything. They're not the priority." She hissed at him, tugging at his jacket.

He paid her no attention, but instead glared down at the werewolf, his gaze only hardening when Scott's soft voice drifted up to him. "She kissed me." Scott said, his eyes boring into Stiles with a dark grin spreading across his lips.

Stiles faltered. "What?"

Annie walked up behind Stiles, a hand stretched out to pull him back outside. Placing it on his shoulder, he only shook it off as Scott looked up at his best friend with a smug glint in his eye.

"I didn't kiss her. She kissed me." He repeated.

"She would've done a lot more, too." He continued. Annie shook her head and aggressively tugged at the back of Stiles' jacket. This time he didn't fight her. He whipped around and rushed out of the room, leaning against the wall just outside of Scott's door.

"You should've seen the way she had her hands all over me. She would've done anything I wanted." As Stiles listened to his best friend's low, suggestive tone, he sank down, his back sliding down the wall.

Annie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, flinching and tightening her grip around herself as Scott yelled "Anything!"

"Hey, McCall?" She asked, keeping her tone light and mockingly friendly, "That's my best friend you're talking about and I have no qualms knocking you out if you keep talking like that." She said, letting herself lean against the wall directly opposite from the open doorway of Scott's room.

Scott let out a dark laugh, "Oh, yeah? Little orphan Annie's trying too hard to make herself into something she's not. You're a joke, Annie. A joke! What're you gonna do?" He taunted.

A muscle in her jaw ticked furiously, but she gave no other indication that she was listening to him. She kept her gaze to the ground, avoiding Stiles' curious and surprised expression. While she had spoken to Scott directly about the fact that her parents had died, Stiles had no way of knowing that she was an orphan.

Licking her lips, she steeled herself before speaking up, not trusting herself to keep her temper in check if she didn't actively think about it. "Scott, I know this is the full moon talking, but I fucking swear, if you don't get a hold of yourself-"

"You'll what? Your bite won't be anywhere near as rough as your bark."

Annie let out an audible scoff and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, dog puns aren't nearly as fun when you're the one making them, McCall, so shut up." She muttered as she pushed herself off the wall and dropped her crossed arms. Reaching out, she pulled the door shut, careful not to disturb the mountain ash she had put down and ignored Scott's renewed snarling.

She sat down on the ground, taking up her spot across from the door. Stiles lifted his head and looked at her with a bit of morbid curiosity. "I… uh-I didn't know you were… uh-"

Annie raised an eyebrow, letting her arms rest atop her knees, trying to push down the feeling of intense discomfort rising up within her. "You can say orphaned, Stiles. There's not really another way of saying it. And it's not like you've ever been particular to anyone's sensitivities before." She said, rolling her eyes, keeping her gaze down.

Stiles kept his eyes on her, his mouth suddenly dry as he tried to come up with something to say to her. Was there something he could say to her? He was certain she wouldn't have divulged that information about herself had Scott not thrown it out into the air before she could do anything about it. "So that's why you're here." He lamely settled on.

She lifted her right shoulder in what she hoped came across as a casual shrug. "Yeah. Uh- my Uncle Alan's the only one who could take me in on such short notice." She rubbed her hands together and let the fingers of her right hand trail down and ghost over the triquetra at her wrist.

"I mean, I've got an aunt and a grandmother. And there's some family in Iran on my dad's side. His brothers and their families live in Ireland, though. Either way, I wasn't about to haul my ass across the ocean and Uncle Alan was listed as my mom's next of kin anyways, so… " She licked her lips and pressed them tightly together as she forced herself to stop talking.

Stiles was surprised to realize that she was a nervous rambler. Perhaps not in the most conventional sense - she seemed to have her shit together enough to lie on the spot pretty convincingly. But when it came to talking about herself? She didn't seem to be able to do so smoothly. It was clear she was uncomfortable with the way the conversation had evolved. Stiles watched as she lifted her eyes to glare at the closed door.

A heavy silence settled in the air between them before Stiles broke it. "My uh- my mom died when I was eight…" He offered quietly.

There was a part of Annie that wanted to lash out at him. That wanted to snap and tell him she didn't need his sympathy. That it wasn't the same. But a greater part of her could see how raw Stiles' expression was, how soft his voice was. He wasn't just saying it for the sake of saying it. Wasn't even trying to find something in common with her. It was something deeper than that. Not quite an 'I understand' - she would have called him out for that because no one really understood.

But it was more of an… 'I see you'.

Which, to his credit, was way more than she could have ever anticipated from him. She found herself regretting her thoughts earlier, assuming that her new friends - him included, she supposed - didn't have anything significant that happened in their lives to give them some perspective. That had been terribly unfair for her to think. It only reminded her of the fact that as much as she wanted to go around and act like she was in the know about everything.

She wasn't.

She observed him carefully before she offered him a small, half-smile. "It's a sucky club we're in, huh?" She replied, her own voice no louder than a whisper.

"I'm really sorry." He offered, to which she shook her head, as though rejecting the apology. His brows furrowed as confusion colored his features.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. No use in apologizing." She explained. Annie was sick of hearing the words 'I"m sorry' from people who had nothing to do with what happened to her. It was such a common phrase that it lost any real meaning to her. But at the same time, what else do you say to someone who lost someone - and in her case, more than one someone - close to them?

She cleared her throat. "But, uh, thanks, Stiles."

He pressed his lips together in a little smile but it soon faded away as he turned his eyes back to the closed door of Scott's bedroom. He clasped his hands together, letting his elbows rest at his elevated knees and he shifted his gaze to stare at the wall right above Annie's shoulder.

Letting his head drop, he also let out an audible sigh and Annie could practically feel the weight of the stress he was feeling. She thought back to earlier when he asked her why she wasn't more anxious and she replied by saying that she was - perhaps even more anxious than he was.

She was starting to believe that maybe she'd been wrong once more. God, she needed to stop jumping to conclusions like this.

It was hard to see Scott like this. She was slowly growing to think of him as not only a responsibility but also perhaps a - well, maybe not a friend, but more like… friend-adjacent. But this was tearing up Stiles' entire world. Several weeks ago he was just a normal human teenager and now he was sitting outside of his best friend's room hearing him growl and fight against the influence of the fucking moon.

She might have feared meeting the beast Scott might become, but Stiles feared forever losing his brother to it.

"Stiles, please let me out." Came Scott's much softer voice, drawing both of their attention from simply how different he sounded to several minutes ago.. "It's the full moon, I swear." He panted. And at that moment, it did sound like the Scott they knew.

Stiles pressed his lips together like he was feeling actual pain for what his best friend was going through, and all she could do was give him a sympathetic half-smile, half-grimace as support.

"You know I wouldn't do any of this on purpose." Scott continued.

Stiles looked at her with questioning eyes, nodding towards the closed door. Silently, she shook her head. As hard as it was for Stiles to listen to, this was the best thing for all of them. All Scott wanted right now was to be let out and let free, and he would do - and say - anything to achieve that.

"Please, Stiles, let me out. It's starting to hurt. It's not like the first time. It's the full moon. It's Allison breaking up with me… I know… that it's just not taking a break-"

Annie rolled her eyes, only just barely preventing herself from audibly letting out an annoyed sigh. The relationship between Scott and Allison was beginning to be a lot more trouble than it was worth, in her not-so-humble opinion. Regardless, Stiles was looking more and more unsure of their actions - or perhaps it was more like vaguely disturbed. Not that she could blame him. They both needed a break from Scott - if nothing else but for some peace for their sanity.

Waving a hand in front of Stiles' face to grab his attention, she mouthed "I'll be back." and got up. Quickly, she ran down the stairs, not bothering to quiet herself and hide her actions from Scott. She grabbed her bag and walked back upstairs, extracting a small puck-like jar in her hands.

Stiles eyed her curiously, his gaze zeroing in on the jar filled with crystals that glimmered a pretty lavender color. Annie ignored his questioning expression as she inhaled slowly and steeled herself to come face to face with an unhappy werewolf.

C'mon, it's just Scott.

Puppy-dog-eyed Scott. Floppy-brown-haired Scott. Dumbass-Scott-who-cared-too-much. She could do this.

She unscrewed the cap, shoved it into her back pocket, and opened the door to Scott's room, flinching back at his immediate growling.

He wouldn't let her close enough for him to take a good whiff of her concoction. Looking around, she threw herself at Scott's desk and grabbed the lamp. Pouring out some of the crystals, she lifted the lamp and started crushing the crystals into finer dust before setting the lamp down and sweeping the powder into her hands. Turning around to face the furious looking - and still growling - beta, she blew the powder into his face.

His face screwed up as he breathed the wolfsbane in. He started coughing and gasping, his shoulders heaving as he tried to catch his breath but was prevented from doing so by her creation. She watched as he gradually became more subdued, his growling ceased and his eyes flickered between the golden glow of his wolf form and the chocolate brown of his normal eyes. Finally, his eyes slowly closed and his breathing slowed down as he passed out, causing her to let out a relieved breath.

She approached him slowly and knelt down in front of him as she carefully placed two fingers at the side of his neck, quickly locating a pulse. His heartbeat seemed elevated, but that was probably better than having it slowed down. At least she knew her creation wasn't straight up lethal.

Turning back to the desk, she picked up the little jar, screwed the cap back on and threw it into her bag before walking out of Scott's room, only to find Stiles' peering curiously into the room. Moving past him, she let her bag fall onto the floor where she had been sitting and continued down the hall to the small bathroom. Quickly washing her hands, she made sure to get any wolfsbane residue off her hands before returning to Stiles who had shifted to sit directly across from the open doorway, staring at his unconscious best friend.

"Is he… gonna be okay?" He asked with uncertainty.

Annie nodded as she slid down the wall to sit next to him. "Should be." She lifted her right shoulder in a shrug. "Gotta be honest, that was the first time I've tried that out so… I have no idea how long he's gonna be out for." She admittedly sheepishly, her gaze trained on Scott, watching the slow rising and falling of his chest.

"What?" Stiles' whipped his head to the side to look at her with wide eyes.

Her eyes shifted momentarily to Stiles, "What?" She asked, her tone becoming defensive immediately before letting her eyes return to observing the werewolf.

"You just blew mysterious dust into his face and you don't know how it'll affect him?"

She lifted a finger in defense. "First of all, not mysterious. It's wolfsbane." She said, as though that should have been enough of an excuse alone before lifting a second finger. "Second of all, I know theoretically how it'll affect him. It just hasn't been ADW approved." She said casually, letting her hand drop.

"ADW?" He asked.

"Administration for Dumb Werewolves. It's like the FDA but it's just me fucking around."

Stiles shook his head, rolling his eyes at her before returning his worried gaze to his unconscious best friend. He and Annie had made leaps and bounds in terms of their relationship and injecting a little more civility between the two of them, but that didn't mean he still didn't find her suspicious as hell.


Annie clocked the effect time of her wolfsbane crystals to about twenty minutes before Scott woke up and resumed his violent screaming and pleading - to which she only responded by dragging the door to his bedroom closed once more before returning back to her spot beside Stiles.

She and Stiles avoided looking at each other as Scott's yelling filled the air, instead choosing to stare straight at the ground in front of them. Annie's gaze flashed up once in a while, to look at the closed door across from them, but at hearing the werewolf's snarling, she'd turn her eyes back down.

This was getting scary.

She'd thought that he'd eventually just… tire himself out, but it seemed like she just underestimated just how feral he'd be. Theoretically, she understood the battle for a werecreatures' fight for humanity when they shifted, but she didn't think she had ever seen it play out like this before. From Scott's everyday struggle to keep his temper in check to now, when the influence of the full moon was too much for a young wolf like him - it was just a lot.

Her uncle's words came rushing back, echoing in her mind.

"You may find yourself sucked back into this life and if you are, it will be harder to leave. You'll be yourself responsible for someone now. If you decide that this isn't what you want, Scott will not be the only one to pay the price."

She glanced at Stiles, whose head was down and whose hands were clasped tightly knuckles paling. Annie swallowed hard, turning her gaze back to the closed door. She thought about Mrs. McCall, with her kind demeanor and obliviousness to the fact that her son's life was being ruined by a supernatural phenomenon. She thought about Allison. As ridiculously small as her relationship to Scott was in the grand scheme of things, it made the girl happy. How could Annie begrudge that?

And how could that relationship possibly survive when one half of it was violently losing his mind behind a closed door?

Her thoughts stopped in their tracks as the screaming and shuffling stopped completely. With a frown, Annie pulled herself up slowly, her back dragging along the wall as she stood, tense and at the ready as her ears strained to hear something.

"Scott?" She called out.

Silence answered her as she furrowed her brows and looked down at Stiles.

"Scott, you okay?" He tried as he followed her lead and stood up too. He exchanged a concerned look with her before he took a step forward and reached for the door handle, flinging it open in a panic. Annie followed him into Scott's bedroom and swore loudly at the sight of the window wide open.

Bloody handcuffs laid beneath the window on the ground. Bending down, she picked up the handcuffs gingerly, grimacing at the scarlet painting the silver metal. Throwing them down in frustration, she buried her hands in her hair, pulling slightly at her roots as she looked around herself in a circle before stopping and staring out of the open window.

Annie turned her gaze to Stiles, but his whole attention was trained on the full moon outside the window and before she could say anything else, he whipped around and ran out. She didn't bother calling out to him but instead ran after him, grabbing her discarded bag on her way out.

She followed him out to the Jeep and wordlessly got into the passenger side seat as he busied himself with getting the car started. He recklessly sped out of the McCall's driveway, eyes wide and alert as he frantically scanned the road in front of him.

Annie rubbed her hands anxiously together. This was bad. This was so bad. His behavior tonight hadn't instilled any confidence in her about his ability to behave, especially not all juiced up by the full moon. She looked outside, her brows furrowing.

"Where would he go? Is there anything in town he has a special connection to?" She asked, directing her question to Stiles. He'd be their best bet at finding Scott now. Annie didn't know the young werewolf that well, but Stiles had said it himself- they were practically brothers.

"I dunno… the lacrosse field? The clinic?"

Annie licked her lips and kept scanning the trees outside her window. "Maybe…" She trailed off. The clinic likely held more emotional weight to Scott considering the amount of time he spent there. But… if it was an emotional connection they were looking for it was probably more appropriate to think about people, not places. "Shit." She swore softly, squeezing her eyes shut and clapping a hand to her forehead.

Stiles turned his head toward her, apprehension in his face. "What?" He asked cautiously, as though he didn't really want to hear the answer.

Annie frowned, "Allison." She answered, acknowledging Stiles' sigh of frustration at the simple but obvious answer with a shrug as a show of her own frustration. "The kid's got a one-track mind. If he's gonna go anywhere, it'd be to track down Allison." She frowned, lifting herself off the seat slightly to take her phone out of her back pocket. Looking down at the illuminated screen, she searched for Allison's number before pausing. Instead, she searched for another number and pressed the call button.

"What?" Came the short answer.

"He got out." She replied, equally as short. "He's probably going after Allison."

She didn't even receive a reply back when the line disconnected, but she still felt a little less panicked. At the very least, Derek would be much more well equipped to find a loose werewolf than two humans were.

"Who was that?" Stiles asked sharply, panic-inspired anger seeping into his tone. Annie wouldn't call a hunter, would she? Not after doing all this, right? Surely after going to all these lengths to seemingly help Scott, she wouldn't turn on him like that?

Annie only clutched her phone tighter, "Derek Hale. Don't worry about it." She said flippantly, the attempted nonchalance doing nothing to mask the tension underlying her voice.

Stiles spluttered. "Excus- What? Since when have you had Derek Hale on speed dial?"

"Since the other day when I looked for him." Annie replied easily with a lazy shrug, turning back to look out of the window.

"When you looked fo-" He repeated before interrupting himself by letting out a scoff and shaking his head. "And you say we're dumb and impulsive." He muttered underneath his breath.

Annie heard him and rolled her eyes. "You are, you don't know what you're doing."

"Oh, and you do?" He retorted.

"I have… a vague idea." She replied back.

"That sounds like you're bullshitting, to be honest."

"It's bullshitting with confidence and style… and a vague idea." She said with emphasis, as though it made a world of difference. "Whatever, we've got a third pair of eyes and ears to help." Her tone signaled the end of the conversation as she avoided his gaze.

They sat in tense silence for what felt like hours but was no more than ten minutes as Stiles steadily drove down the dark back roads of Beacon Hills, eyes peeled for a rabid Scott McCall. Annie could practically feel the tension and anxiety rolling off of Stiles. Or maybe that was just her.

Who was she kidding? It was both of them.

Annie opened her mouth to speak - to fill the silence that was beginning to suffocate her. But she wasn't quite sure what to say. She knew he was frustrated with her. Frustrated with the way she handled things. Frustrated with the way she was treating the situation like it was just another night. The truth of the matter was that it wasn't just another night.

"You know…" She started out slowly. " I'm sorry, Stiles." She said quietly, no hint of the blasé tone she'd been speaking with earlier.

He didn't look at her, only furrowed his brows as his grip on the steering wheel tightened. Annie licked her lips, pushing herself to be honest with him. She needed him to know that she was taking this seriously. That his best friend's life - that his life - wasn't just a thing she was playing with. That was the last thing she'd ever want to do.

"This was my fault." She admitted, a sharp change from the conversation before. "I should've remembered to cover all weaknesses of the room. Should've laid some mountain ash at the window. I should've taken more severe measures. This never should've happened." She said quietly, her hands fidgeting with her phone.

He glanced at her out of his periphery and he was surprised to see her look so genuinely upset. Her brows were furrowed and he could tell she was deep in thought. What those thoughts were exactly, he couldn't be too sure, but from how guilty she sounded, they probably weren't all that self-aggrandizing.

"Do you seriously think this is your fault?" He asked, his tone filled with curiosity.

She let out a scoff, as though it was so obvious that it was dumb to even ask. "Listen, I should've prepared him more. That was on me." She said tightly. She overestimated Scott's ability to control himself as well as her own ability to keep things under control. She should have prepared everyone more. It would be oversights like this that would lead to irreversible damage.

"I should've prepared you more."

He looked at her with raised eyebrows and she gave a shrug in response. "When you asked me what you should be doing back at your place on Friday, I could've used your help and I should've taken you seriously… I'm sorry." She lifted her gaze back to him, an apologetic grimace on her face. She thought he'd only get in the way, that there was no way real progress would happen if Stiles got in the way of things.

Evidently, she'd be unable to do this without him.

Stiles, frankly, was just surprised to hear her apologize. She didn't seem like the type to apologize for anything. Rather, he thought she'd be more the type to just shrug off her mistakes - not admit to them.

It looked like they were both wrong about each other.

Before he could say anything, though, his attention was drawn to a scene they were quickly approaching. Right in front of them, several emergency vehicles - with their blinding red and blue lights - were parked along the road, near the entrance of the Preserve.

"No, no, no, no…." Stiles began muttering under his breath as she undid her seatbelt, murmuring swears to herself. He slowed down, eventually parking the car and launching himself out of the car, running forwards into the mess. Annie followed him at a significantly slower pace, her eyes wide and alert as she took in the scene.

"Dad? Da- Has anyone…" Stiles' panicked calls filled the air.

Paramedics were pushing a gurney toward the ambulance, the body laying across it was hidden by a draped sheet, and the closer they got Annie could see that there was no rising and falling of the chest.

Stiles began making his way to every officer he could, trying to find his father. "Has anyone seen my dad?"

Annie stood there, not knowing what to do - afraid to see whether Stiles' worst fear was about to come true. Stiles came to stand beside her, beside the gurney with the covered body. As the paramedics worked to lift the gurney up, a limp, burned arm flopped out from the side.

"Stiles? What are you doing here?"

Hearing his father's voice, Stiles whipped around, absolute relief settling into his expression before he launched himself into his father's arms. Annie could see the sheriff's confused expression and a part of her wanted to tug Stiles away - he was acting much too suspicious for his own good.

But God. Could she blame him?

He'd just thought that the person on a gurney beneath a white sheet had been his father. If Annie had turned around and found her mother in one piece, safe and alive, she wouldn't have been able to hold together any kind of semblance of composure.

"What are you doing here?" The Sheriff asked again before his gaze fell on her. "Annie? Did he drag you here?"

Annie shook her head, giving Stiles a quick glance before turning her gaze back to his father. "Nope, uh… He was actually just driving me home and we came across the scene." She lied, quickly fashioning her expression into one of apology. She wrinkled her nose and grimaced, bowing her head slightly as she apologized. "Sorry, we got curious."

The sheriff paused for a moment, making Annie look back up at him only to see that the suspicion hadn't gone anywhere from his eyes. "Isn't home in the other direction?" He asked.

"Y-yes. We got… sidetracked." Stiles jumped in and nodded furiously.

"With what?" He asked, shortly.

Stiles cleared his throat and looked at her, clearly unsure about what to say next. "We… uh, we just uh, you know- I was helping."

"Helping? With what? Didn't you-" He pointed at Annie before turning his attention back to his son, "-say you were driving her home?"

"He was just showing me some shortcuts. I'm still trying to get familiar with the town and he offered to help." She clapped a hand on Stiles' shoulder hard, making him wince and shoot her an annoyed look, but she paid him no mind. She squeezed his shoulder and smiled up at the Sheriff. "You've got yourself a good kid, sir."

"What I've got is a delinquent too influential for anyone's good. Go home, you two. Really."

"You got it, Sheriff!"

"But, wai-"

"Let's go, Stiles." She hissed, giving his shoulder a shove before pushing past him to the passenger side of his Jeep.

She waited until they were both in the car and he was pulling away from the crime scene before she let her head loll lazily to the side to look at him. "Do you always flop when lying to your dad?" She asked casually.

He rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry, I was just relieved he wasn't werewolf food!"

Annie lifted her hands, not willing to argue with him at least on that front. She couldn't really blame him for dropping the ball with lying to the man's face. "Okay, okay. Valid… you just gotta work on the bullshitting, kid."

"I can bullshit." He disagreed.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, you reek of bullshit. You just need to work on making it believable. There's a difference."

"You're so pretentious."

"Also valid." She said with a grin before looking down at her phone, feeling it buzz in her hands.

Found him. We're good.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Derek found him. Everything's fine."

"Everything is not fine! Did you not see that crime scene? What if that was Scott?"

She shook her head. "It was probably the alpha." She said flippantly.

"What if it was Scott being controlled by the alpha?"

Well… he had her there. She remained silent, making him take his eyes off the road to look at her incredulously. "You have nothing to say?" He pressed.

"Listen… if it was really him, his eyes would change." She explained with a slight frown as she looked down at her phone and began typing out another message. "If they're blue then he did it and we'll have way more to worry about."

'hey were his eyes still gold?'

'Yeah… Why?'

'nothing. thx'

"Well, Derek says they're still the same. So, that's one mystery solved. McCall is not a murderer!" She said, her tone taking on cheerily, lifting her head back up to look at Stiles with a grin that soon melted away at seeing his still-serious expression.

"This was too close." He said tightly.

Annie observed him for a moment longer before she sighed with a nod. "No, I know. You're right." She conceded. While a part of her wanted to consider this full moon a success - and in a way it was, at least it ended significantly better than her last one - it really was an epic failure if she applied her usual standards.

Control? Lost.

Werewolf? Loose.

Arguably the two most important measures of a successful full moon and they were both unfulfilled.

Stiles was right. This was way too close and it could have ended terribly wrong not only because Scott was young and emotionally compromised, which would've proved to make him a dangerous werewolf, but it also would have made him particularly vulnerable to the alpha's call.

The rest of the car ride was filled with an uneasy, tense silence as the two occupants of the Jeep got lost in their own thoughts. It wasn't too long before Stiles pulled up in front of Deaton's house and he put the car in park as Annie gathered her bag in her hands and prepared to leave - eager to crawl into bed after the night they'd had.

"Oh!" Stiles exclaimed. "Uh, by the way…" He trailed off before leaning over and stretching his arm across her to open his glove compartment, grab a familiar silver canister, and hold it up for her to take.

Annie simply stared at it with furrowed brows before shaking her head and pushing his hand towards himself. "Dude, this was for you."

He looked at her in confusion. "Wait. Like… to keep?"

"Well, yeah." She said, as though it was the most obvious thing ever. "You saw tonight how bad things could get. The full moon sucks for werewolves. But it's people like you and me that are the most vulnerable. You should at least have something on you to protect yourself."

He looked down at it in silent thought, a slight frown beginning to tug at the corner of his lips.

"Hey." She began softly, hesitantly. "I know tonight was a lot to handle. But, uh, I've got your back. And I'll need you to have mine." She said, watching him lift his gaze up to meet hers. "I'm not the easiest person to get along with. I know that. And I know we got off to a rocky start. But you can trust me. I want to help. I'm not gonna be so… touch-and-go, anymore." She promised.

Annie was serious about her promises, not that Stiles knew her well enough yet to know that. But the way she said it, with such solemnity and weight, he couldn't help but take her for her word. He gave her a nod, and she gave one back in return.

She inhaled slowly and exhaled audibly before clearing her throat. "Just… go home. Get some rest. Your body's gonna have one hell of an adrenaline crash soon." She gave him a pat on the shoulder before reaching over and opening the door to the Jeep to hop out.

"Hey!" Stiles called out, causing her to pause before she could shut the door of the Jeep closed. "This wasn't your fault, you know. Like... unless you can do some freaky moon magic to prevent the full moon from having its effect... you're just doing your best."

Annie looked at him for a moment, an emotion he couldn't quite place shining in her dark eyes. She gave him a small nod as she pressed her lips together, like she was hiding away a smile and lifted her hand in a lazy salute before slamming the door shut and making her way home.

Stiles watched her as she opened the little wooden gate at the entrance of the property and kept watching until she made it safely inside before he put the Jeep into gear and began driving home.

'And I'll need you to have mine.' She had said.

He didn't know why her words kept echoing in his mind. Maybe it was her admission from earlier, that she hadn't been taking him seriously and then her apology, compounded by the words 'I'll need you'.

God, he had no idea what he got himself into with Scott, but at least he had another person to go through it with him. At least now he wasn't completely alone.