CHAPTER 20

It Happened One Night

There was a rapping on the front door. Mars turned off the stove and put her half-assed eggs on a different burner. She wiped her hands and answered the door. "Allison, hi?"

School wasn't out already, was it? Allison smiled. "Come in?" Mars offered opening the door wide enough for her to step through.

"Mr. Harris said you might be out for a couple days." Allison informed, handing over a folder of coursework. She looked around the living room. It was really messy, something Allison wasn't used to.

The mess wasn't anything dramatic- just pizza boxes and dirty plates, unfolded blankets, and one too many ashtrays- but it was drastically different from the uptight house her parents kept. Mars herself was looking a more disheveled than normal. Her hair was pulled into a haphazard bun atop of her head, she was barefaced and only in a stained oversized tee shirt. "You okay?"

Mars nodded. "Yeah, I just wasn't expecting company." She noted, embarrassed. "Sorry about the smoke. Parents aren't supposed to be home for a few days." Mars put out the cigarette leaned against an ash tray and cleared the pizza boxes. "Make yourself at home."

"It's alright, Mars." Allison sat down, patting the seat beside her, Mars took the spot, folding her hands on her lap. "I don't know what happened, but I'm here- if you need to talk…" Allison suggested, a little nervous about the offer considering they weren't the closest of friends. "I know we only met, like, two weeks ago? But talking always helps me." She paused, "So. Yeah. I'm here."

"Uh. Thanks." Mars smiled a little. "That's really sweet." She was becoming more and more of a fan of Allison each time she saw her. "Well, uh, now that you're here maybe we can hang out?" Mars suggested.

Allison's dimples showed as she smiled wide. "Yeah! That'd be great."

"Great! Erm…" Mars drifted. What do people do when they hang out? "I have video games and food?" Allison bit the inside of her lip, trying to hide she didn't think that sounded very fun. "Thought you might prefer it to smoking and reading in silence. Besides, I can teach you how to play League of Legends…" Mars paused. "It's Scott's favorite, you can impress him with it."

"Oh, um." Allison shied away, "You don't need to do that."

"I insist." Mars stood and began to walk towards her bedroom. "Are you coming?" She asked. Allison got up and followed. When the door was opened, Allison had to admit the room wasn't quite what she imagined. She pictured everything being black and smoke wafting around, maybe a poster or two. She'd expected clothes lying about and an unmade bed.

The bedroom was none of those things. Mars walked over to her bed and powered on the laptop sitting on it. "It's got a few viruses, so…. It'll be just a second." Mars picked up Doc off her chair and took his place, letting him sit in her lap and purr.

With some hesitation Allison sat down in the cloud of white that was supposed to be a bed, but it was way too soft. She looked at the photo framed beside her bed, her eye immediately drawn to Scott and his missing tooth. Then to Mars and Stiles, they all seemed so happy. She didn't recognize the woman in the photo, but she had a feeling it was Mrs. Stilinski, Stiles shared her eyes.

The screen lit up. "Uh… it looks like the computer is on."

"There's no password, just click the icon for the game." Mars kissed the top of Docs head, she loved the fat old fluff ball. Allison did as she was told, smiling a little when she saw the background was again of the trio, this time squeezed together into the back of the jeep at a drive-in theater. Mars squished in the middle but beaming with joy despite the discomfort. The friendship was beginning to make more sense to Allison.

Mars, however, wasn't sure what she was doing. The last time she'd hung out with Allison, she'd had an objective. Find shit out for Scott. Now she was just… unsure. Other than moving a lot as kids, they didn't have much in common but Scott.

She didn't know how to have female friends, but she was trying to learn.

There was shuffling outside the bedroom window, Allison glanced over, Mars ignored it. "Mars!" Stiles shouted, falling off the ledge to her room when he couldn't open up the window with ease. "Mars!" He knocked on the glass. Annoyed, she got up and opened it, waiting for him to climb in. "Since when do you lock your friggen window?" He tripped over his own feet and used Mars to steady himself.

"Since last night." Mars said. "Do you need something?" She still had her cat in her arms, it was almost as if he'd fallen asleep.

"Uh, no?" Stiles saw the form of someone sitting on the bed, and thought it best to lie.

"Then what are you doing here?" Mars put Doc back in his seat.

Stiles looked over at Allison on the bed, he really just wanted to fill Mars in on everything- but Allison sitting there was going to prevent that from being feasible. Of course, his mouth was ahead of his mind and he didn't have time to come up with a reasonable excuse before words flew out of him. "Uh, nothing, what are you doing here?"

Mars turned her head to the side a bit. What she wouldn't give to hit him. "What am I doing here? In my room?"

"Yeah." He scratched the back of his neck, his nervous habit when he didn't know quite what to do with his hands. He looked at Allison again, waving awkwardly. He really did make these situations worse for himself. "There is just some stuff… that I need to talk to you about." He cleared his throat. "Important stuff about me and you and-"

"Can you please stop talking." Mars cut him off before he could make things sound even worse. "How about you use the door like a normal person?"

"I haven't used the door since we were ten and you could pull me up." He'd stated as if it was nothing at all.

"Why don't you go hang out with Aje? Yeah? Sound good?" Mars suggested, antsy. "He's in his room, go do whatever it is you do," and she ushered him out to the hallway.

"But-" Mars shut the door in his face, she shook her head before turning back to Allison.

Mars turned to Allison. "Sorry about him."

"Am I gonna get an explanation to that or are you just going to leave me with my imagination?" Allison raised an eyebrow. She'd been telling herself she wasn't going to ask… but… it was all a bit too tempting after that.

"To what?" Mars asked, knowing exactly what Allison was getting at- "Stiles?" Mars laughed, her cool, un-anxious demeanor pulled off sincerity. It was a specialty to put it simply. "Like that'd ever happen."

"So… it's not a thing?" Allison questioned.

Mars took a moment to string together words in her head. "No, I mean, Stiles is great and all, more than great, but he's like my brother."

Allison seemed to be overtaken by curiosity. "Don said that you dumped him for Stiles." She tried to lead the conversation, it didn't go unnoticed, but it did go unannounced.

Mars tensed at the mention of him.

She still hadn't seen a werewolf shift, however, she imagined Derek to be massive and demonic as a wolf. She really didn't want to test him, she had to figure out some way to get Don back in the palm of her hand. "Don?" Allison nodded.

"Is it true?"

"No, it's definitely not true. However, I am going to go have a word with him tonight." That gave her a few hours to come up with a game plan.

"Okay… Well it seemed like Stiles had something he needed to tell you, so maybe I should get going?" Allison continued to test the waters.

Much to Allison's dismay, Mars didn't entertain the implication game. "Uh, yeah. I guess. Another time then?" She suggested.

"Of course." Allison stood and opened the bedroom door, Stiles hadn't moved from when Mars had shut it on him, the only change was him tapping his foot against the floor repeatedly.

When he realized the door was open he pushed past Allison and closed the door behind him, leaving Allison on the other side to show herself out. It seemed like Mars couldn't care less about that, she was a shit host anyways, no need to pretend otherwise.

"Dude, we really need to talk." Stiles announced, throwing his arms out by his sides.

"Fucking hell." Mars folded her arms against her chest. "Could you be any less smooth?"

"Excuse you, I am smooth as a baby's butt."

"More like crunchy peanut butter. What's so important?"

Stiles looked at her for a moment, narrowing his eyes just a smidge before laying down. If you could call it laying, it was more like he collapsed onto the bed and landed on his back. "Don't hurt me, okay? This is the first chance either of us has had to get over here. But. Uh… Okay. We have a problem."

Mars shifted awkwardly where she stood, her mind wandering back to when Derek stood in the same spot she was in last night. "Yeah, I got that."

"We kinda know now that Derek didn't turn Scott."

"Yeah, I know." She slipped. It flew over his head.

"Right, so I guess it was an Alpha of some sort? Well, at least I think he said Alpha. And anyways, whatever. The problem is it can call Scott out against his will and we don't know who it is or how to stop it and I guess Derek said it wants Scott to be part of his pack or something? I don't know." He shook his head. "Wait, did you say you know?" Mars stayed silent. "Scott texted you? Yeah, I guess that would've been a smarter, faster way of going about things."

Mars shook her head. "Yes, it would've. But…" she turned towards her vanity and began to pretend like she was looking for something to seem busy. "Erm- Derek told me" Stiles looked at her, waiting for her to continue. "He stopped by last night."

Stiles felt something rather strange twist in his stomach, before he'd known it he was on his feet and standing behind her- completely unaware of 'personal space'. "Why? What did he say? Other than the whole not changing Scott thing." Mars turned her body around, leaning her bum against the edge of her vanity, Stiles was far too close, but it wasn't anything unordinary for him.

She studied him carefully, she felt an overwhelming urge to bop him on the forehead so his eyes might go back to their normal size. She was at a impasse, tell him the truth or pile on the lies? For once, she made the right choice. "Don is a hunter, I guess."

"W-what?" He stuttered. "You found this out last night and you're just telling me now?!" Mars almost pointed out his double standard, but refrained. "What the hell, Mars!"

"Look, I'll keep an eye on him, okay? Don't worry about it." She stressed, she'd been doing more than enough worrying for the both of them.

"I'm gonna worry about it." He announced, throwing his arms out by his sides, Mars pushed past him. "Why did Derek tell you and not Scott anyways?" Stiles followed her.

"You're asking me?" She laughed.

"The dude's a creep!" Stiles exclaimed, still following her as she moved around the room.

She sat down on her bed, shaking her leg. She needed to be moving, but Stiles' hounding was making her more nervous than she was already. "Says the one who is shocked that a window was locked." She rolled her eyes.

"Okay, that was hurtful. But what are we doing about this?" He inquired, standing in front of her at a comfortable distance now.

"We are not doing anything." She snapped. He needed to back the fuck off. "Derek came to me, it's on my shoulders. Just focus on getting Scott under control, okay?"

"Um, no not at all okay!" He scoffed. "That's kind of a big thing, Mar!" he exploded. Why was she not freaked out? This was like- a seriously freak out worthy thing. Especially because she was sober, like 1542% sober. Or she was playing it off well. Maybe she wasn't. Stiles never really knew anymore.

"Stiles, stop flailing for a second and look at me." Mars snapped, stood, and held his spastic arms against his sides, steadying him.

She looked him in the eyes, willing him to mellow out. Shockingly, he did.

Stiles felt a wave of calm flow over him as he looked into the seas of blue. Like she'd hypnotized him. When she spoke, she didn't break eye contact; "This one isn't about you. It's not for you to worry about." She spoke, her raspy voice more soothing than normal. "Derek told me because I have a relationship with Don. I have an in. I can protect Scott, throw him off his trail." Mars lied, she knew the real reason Derek came to her.

It was because he knew something was wrong about her, because he thought she was suspicious, that she might be one of them. Sure, her… friendship with Don could have been a factor. When it was boiled down though? It was meant as a threat.

"So, calm down."

"I guess that makes sense." Stiles nodded, she looked down. Mars felt a stab of guilt, looking him in the eye and lying to him- she knew it was becoming too easy. She wrapped her arms around Stiles and buried her head against his chest; pulling him into a much needed but very unexpected hug.

Yet again, she wanted to tell him everything and found herself unable to. That she thought she could be the alpha, that Derek had told her because he could take advantage of that, that she wasn't in school because grandad died, that she was sorry for keeping so much from him. He returned the hug, still confused. Even after he let go, Mars still clung to him.

"Okay then." He mumbled, placing his arms back around her. "You- uh- you okay?" She nodded and let go. "You sure? You don't seem all that okay."

"Yeah, I'm sure." Mars said, stepping back. "I just gotta go take care of some stuff." She grabbed a pair of jeans from her closet and pulled them up, tucking in the front of the oversized tee she was wearing. "You can hang out here if you want… I'll be back soon."