Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf. I also have no claim on any pop culture references that I may use throughout my writings. I only own my OCs. Enjoy the read.

401 ~

Spencer had been trying to balance getting back in the good graces of her friends and pseudo-parents as well as making sure Stiles' head stayed screwed on straight. After a night of finally getting her birthday ice cream with Melissa McCall, Spencer realized she had something that she felt she needed to tell Scott. She made her way up to his room and stood in the doorway, watching as he worked on something for school. "Hey, Scotty."

Scott looked up at the doorway. "Hey, Pence," His glance moved between her and his work. "Did you do this chemistry work? I'm just not picking it up."

"Honestly, I'm still a few chapters behind. I meant to catch up this week, but I've been busy." Spencer made her way into his room and to his bed to sit at the foot of it.

Scott groaned softly. "That's alright." He threw his pen on the desk and looked at her. "Everything okay?" He asked with a furrowed brow.

Spencer nodded. "Yeah, everything's fine. I just -" She stopped, listening for a moment. It was just her, Scott, and Melissa in the McCall house. "It's not my business. It's not really even yours, but I kinda think you should know, you know?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Isaac...and Allison."

Scott pursed his lips in recognition. "Yeah, I know."

"Have you talked to him about any of it?"

"What would I even say? I'm not with Allison."

"Honestly?" Spencer questioned, getting a nod in response. "I don't know. I know I can't talk to him. I thought we were okay after the motel. He seemed to understand my reasoning behind everything. And even with Stiles and me doing whatever it is that we're doing." Spencer said, laughing softly and shaking her head. "But now? I love you, and I love him, but you know how I feel about Allison."

"She's done a lot for us." Scott reminded his friend.

"I know. And I've been trying to remind myself that when I find myself thinking of her nearly killing us in that warehouse." Spencer tried to rid herself of the thought as it came from her mouth.

Scott got up to walk towards the bed to sit next to her. "That was Gerard. You know that."

Spencer sighed. "I didn't come here to talk about my problems with Allison. I really just wanted you to know that I'm here for you. I know I'm busy trying to catch up with school and keep Stiles from completely losing it, but you are also my best friend. You have been for a very long time, and," Spencer took in a deep breath, feeling a lump form in her throat.

Scott wrapped an arm around her shoulders and grabbed her hand with the other.

"I don't want things to get bad between us again. That was some terrifying shit, and I'm not willing to lose my best friend."

Scott squeezed Spencer tightly. "I'm not going anywhere, Pence."

"I know," Spencer let out a breath and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Neither am I."

Scott held her quietly for a moment. "So, what is it that you and Stiles are doing?"

Spencer lifted her hand to look at him with a large grin. "We're taking it slow, but I'm happy. Things are excellent."

"But you are together?"

"Yes," Spencer said with a chuckle. "We are together."

Scott sighed in relief. "Finally. Could you two try not to mess it up this time?"

Spencer dropped her jaw in shock. "Scotty, what the hell?"

"I'm kidding," Scott said, laughing and shaking his head reassuringly. "Mostly."

! #$# !

Spencer had been helping the sheriff with his cases as much as she could between school and her job at the animal clinic. Assisting the sheriff in deciphering his supernatural cases seemed to be something Spencer looked forward to the most in her schedule. She appreciated their relationship and the fact that he'd never seen her as anything but what she'd always been.

After a tough night getting Stiles to sleep and then helping the Sheriff with his work until late, she found her way back into her room. Spencer sighed, changing into a looser shirt that she'd one stolen from Derek without him knowing. She crawled into her bed and under the comforter, grabbing her favorite blanket and hugging it to her chest. Spencer's head finally relaxed onto her pillow, and she managed to fall asleep.

It had felt like minutes had gone by when a scream woke her up. Spencer jolted into a seated position, looking to the wall that connected her and Stiles' rooms. "Stiles?" she questioned, throwing away all of her covers and rushing next door.

The sheriff had gotten to his room faster than she had and was wrapping his arms around him. He held Stiles, cradling him so he wouldn't hurt himself until he calmed.

Spencer couldn't do anything but stand next to the bed and wait for Stiles to soothe. She'd always been so worried that if she were the one to hold him as he screamed that she would hurt him with her strength. Spencer had always wanted to be the one to help him, hating that she had to watch him cry.

Stiles calmed after a few minutes of crying and finally realizing that he was awake and had another nightmare. "I'm okay," He assured the two of them, sniffling and wiping the tears from under his eyes.

Stilinski let go of his son slowly, just in case.

Stiles sat up, putting his legs over the side of his bed, just as his father was doing.

Spencer sat on the other side of Stiles and grabbed his hand. "You wanna talk about it?"

Stiles shook his head quickly.

"Okay."

Stilinski pat Stiles on the knee with a heavy sigh. "You guys try to relax, okay?" The man stood from the bed, stopping in front of Spencer for a moment to kiss the top of her head. "I'll see you both in the morning."

Both teenagers watched as he left, not closing the door completely.

Stiles stared at the gap in the door.

Spencer studied him as his heartbeat sped up, and Stiles wouldn't tear his eyes from the door. "You okay?"

Stiles looked at Spencer, sniffling again, and nodded. "Can you close that?"

Spencer looked from him to the door and back. "Yeah, of course." She got up, closed the door, and returned to the bed. "C'mon. Lay down."

Stiles listened to her without hesitation. It was apparent he was exhausted, but whether or not he would be getting any more sleep was another story.

Spencer got in bed underneath his comforter with him, facing him on her side.

"Spencer?"

"Yeah?"

"It's you, right?"

Spencer furrowed her brow. "Who else would it be?" She asked with all seriousness. Spencer felt the shake of Stiles' head and heard another sniffle. "Okay. It's me, Stiles." She turned onto her back and held her arm out. "C'mere."

Stiles scooted closer to Spencer, laying his head on her chest and tangling a leg with hers.

"It's okay, Stiles. It's just me." She said, holding him tightly.

Spencer did her best to keep Stiles calm through the night. Neither of them was sure how much sleep Stiles got after his nightmare. Spencer was confident that he'd been awake the whole time. She would wake up periodically just to listen to his heartbeat and find that he was awake. The redhead would curl closer to him, tracing her fingers lightly on his back until she fell back to sleep. Spencer wouldn't call him out on not sleeping. There were plenty of nights since the sacrifice, where sleeping just wasn't an option.

The pair took turns showering before packing their bags for school. Spencer put the last of her books in her backpack when she heard the sheriff make his way down the hallway.

"Hey, you alright?"

Spencer threw her bag around her shoulder and left her room.

"You ready for school?" The sheriff asked, catching Spencer headed towards him. He took a step back so she could stand in the doorway with him.

"Yeah," Stiles responded, "I'm good."

Spencer leaned on the wall, staring down at the box in the Sheriff's hands. Her fingers were twisted together awkwardly.

"Guys, seriously. I'm fine. It was just a nightmare."

Sheriff looked at Spencer.

Spencer nodded at him, having a quiet conversation with the man.

"What's that?" Stiles asked, gesturing to the box his father held.

Sheriff looked at the box and then at Spencer again. He shook his head. "It's just, uh, files from the office."

Stiles furrowed his brow, taking a closer look at the box. "It says 'sheriff's station, do not remove…'"

"Well, he's the sheriff," Spencer said with a smirk, knowing the real reason he didn't want to explain why he had the files. "I don't think it applies to him."

"Right. That's right."

"Are you ready?"

Stiles looked between his dad and Spencer. "...Almost."

"Alright, see you two later?" The Sheriff questioned. "Don't forget you guys have to pick up the flowers."

Spencer took a deep breath. "Couldn't forget if I wanted to," she said, offering a small smile to the man. "Catch you later, Pops."

The sheriff bumped her lightly with his elbow on his way past her.

Spencer took a step further into the doorway to lean on the jam. She watched as Stiles continued to pack his school bag. "You don't have to talk about it, ever, if you don't want to. You know that?"

"Yeah," he said, zipping his bag.

"But I do think we should ask Scott and Allison if they have any weird supernatural side effects from being sacrificed."

Stiles nodded.

"I just want to make sure that it's not just you. I should have asked Scott last night, but it'd been a while since you had one that bad."

Stiles put his bag on his shoulder and walked towards her, stopping when he stood next to her in the doorway.

"It's for science. You know how much I love a good hypothesis. Scientific method and all that…."

Stiles showed Spencer a small appreciative smile. "Yeah?" he asked, getting a nod from Spencer in reply. Stiles looked down at his hands for a moment, looking at his fingers.

Spencer let him finish counting before she grabbed his hand. "It's still me, Stiles."

Stiles raised his eyes to meet hers, shaking his head. "Thanks." He leaned down, kissing her lightly. "Ready?"

Spencer shook her head, claiming another kiss. "She placed a hand on the side of his face, kissing him a few more times before having her fill. "Now I'm ready."

! #$# !

The two of them held hands as they walked through the courtyard from the fieldhouse where Stiles parked the Jeep. They walked in silence, which wasn't a bad thing for them. Especially this morning. A lot had happened in the past twelve hours, and they wanted to try and enjoy their day.

Spencer stopped suddenly, feeling her heartbeat surge. She furrowed her brow and looked around, turning her head to look in all directions.

Stiles stopped in front of her and let her hand go to turn around and face her. "Everything okay?"

"No. We gotta find Scott." Spencer insisted, walking around Stiles, moving quickly through the underpass of the courtyard, trying to find Scott's scent. She found him, hurrying down the steps, and looked behind him like he was being chased. Spencer ran up to him and grabbed his shoulders. "Scott?"

Scott centered himself with her, looking up at her in surprise.

"Hey, buddy, you okay?"

Stiles caught up to them. "You alright?" He asked Scott.

Scott took in a deep breath, looking behind him at whatever it was he believed he was running from. He nodded, relaxing. "I'm okay."

Stiles shook his head. "No, you're not. It's happening to you, too." Stiles glanced to Spencer.

Spencer dropped her hands from Scott's shoulders. "You're seeing things, aren't you?"

Scott looked between his two best friends. "How did you know?"

Spencer scrunched her nose. "I got the feeling that it may be happening to all three of you. It's been happening to Stiles."

Scott turned to Stiles and got a head nod.

Lydia approached the group from behind Spencer. "Well, look who's no longer the crazy one."

"Don't speak so soon," Spencer said under her breath.

"We're not crazy," Allison said, appearing behind Lydia.

Spencer shook her head at Lydia. "They're not," she insisted. "This is definitely about the sacrifice."

Lydia raised a brow at the redhead. "Hallucinating and Sleep paralysis? Yeah, they are totally fine."

"We did die and come back to life. That's gotta have some side effects, right?" Scott asked, looking around at his friends.

Lydia shrugged and rolled her eyes.

Spencer quickly regretted texting Lydia about the problems that she had been having with Stiles. "Look, this is nothing that we can't get back in control of." Spencer looked directly at Lydia. "We just have to look out for them, okay?"

Stiles nodded. "We keep an eye on each other. And Lydia?" He questioned as Lydia tilted her head to respond. "Stop enjoying this so much." Stiles walked away, with Scott and Allison following quickly after him.

"Lydia, you have to cool it with crazy talk," Spencer begged.

"Can't I enjoy this for, like, a minute?"

"You get until lunch. But I desperately need your help to try and figure out what the hell is going on with them."

"Spencer!?" Stiles called, making Spencer turn to spot him. "You comin'!?"

"One sec!" She shouted back, looking at Lydia again. "Please."

Lydia narrowed her eyes at Spencer. "You two are back together, aren't you?"

"It's been like three weeks. How did none of you know?"

! #$# !

Spencer quickly learned that keeping track of her best friends was a more challenging task than she was prepared for. Lydia had it easier than she did because she spent the day following Allison around. Spencer was following Stiles and Scott around, having classes with both boys all day. Scott's heart rate had gone alarmingly high in the middle of their history class after their new history teacher, Mr. Yukimura, introduced his daughter to the class. Spencer had to pull him out of that trance. Whatever Scott had been staring at on the ground was scaring him.

On the way to Stiles' locker to get his books for the next class, Spencer sighed. "We've got to work on a better schedule to keep track of you two. Maybe we should just homeschool until you're back to normal."

"What do you mean?" Scott asked.

"I mean, keeping an eye on both of you throughout the day is exhausting." Spencer sent a pointed look to Stiles to remind him that she already wasn't sleeping at night. "I mean, I love you, Stiles, I really do, but Lydia was the one who held you under."

Stiles paused for a moment, narrowing his eyes at Spencer. "Thanks for that, best friend. Good lookin' out."

"Maybe we need a little more time to get back to normal?" Scott offered.

"Exactly." The group arrived at his locker, and Stiles started to work on his lock. "Try not to forget: we hit the reset button on a supernatural beacon for supernatural creatures. There's a pretty good chance things are never going back to normal."

Spencer groaned and leaned against the lockers on Stiles' right side across from Scott.

"Oh, please. You've never had it normal."

"Thanks for that, best friend. Good lookin' out." She repeated his words back to him before letting out a laugh. Spencer turned her attention to Scott as he stared down the hallway behind her. She turned her head for just a moment to find Mr. Yukimura talking with his daughter, Kira. Spencer furrowed her brow, curious about Scott's own curiosity in the new girl. She looked back at him, spotting that his eyes were glowing red. Spencer felt hers change to gold without even thinking about it. "Scott, stop it."

"Stop what?" He asked before looking back at her with wide eyes. "Your eyes are gold."

"Yeah, because yours are red. Stop it."

Stiles dropped his lock, frustrated with it, and looked between his friends. "Guys, stop." He watched Spencer close her eyes and shake her head.

"Good?" Spencer asked when she opened her eyes, looking at Stiles.

Stiles nodded and turned to Scott. "Scott, stop! Stop it!"

Scott shook his head, trying to change them back to normal. "I can't -" He gasped. "I can't control it."

Spencer pushed through Stiles and grabbed Scott's arm, pulling him with her by his elbow. "Keep your head down." She looked at him, seeing he'd listened to her. "Stiles, let's go." Spencer led the three of them to an empty classroom. Once inside, she tore Scott's backpack off of his arms, nearly ripping the straps.

Scott continued into the room, standing in the middle, while Stiles shut the door. "Get back away from me," he warned.

Spencer shook her head, taking steps towards him. "Scotty, it's okay. It's just us." She said, repeating the words she'd been speaking to Stiles all morning.

"I don't know what's going to happen."

"I know you're not gonna hurt me. So, I'm not worried about it."

"Spence…" Stiles said cautiously.

Spencer turned her head, looking at Stiles, and showed him her palm to calm him. She was the only barrier between him and a powerful alpha werewolf. Spencer turned her attention back to Scott. "You wanna stay human, right?"

Scott nodded, gritting his teeth with his red eyes flashing up at her.

"So, what do you have to do?"

Scott thought for a second before a determined look appeared on his face. He raised his fists, jamming his claws into the palms of his hands. Scott groaned, letting out the softest of roars as his blood started to run down his arms from the punctures. He fell to his knees, finally feeling like he was back in control. Scott gasped for breath, leaning on a desk chair, exhausted and healing.

Spencer joined him, kneeling on the linoleum. "You okay, Scott?"

Stiles approached on Spencer's left side. "What just happened?"

"Pain makes you human."

Stiles shook his head. "Guys, this isn't just in our heads. This is real. And it's started to get bad for me, too…." He looked at Spencer.

Spencer perked the corner of her mouth up for just a second, grabbing his hand for support.

"I'm not just having nightmares. I have dreams where I literally scream myself awake." Stiles turned his hand over and squeezed Spencer's with his. "And sometimes, I'm not even sure if I'm actually ever waking up."

Spencer looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"

"You know we've been researching things so that I can tell when I'm dreaming from when I'm not?"

Both Spencer and Scott nodded their heads.

"You can't read in dreams." Stiles shared. "More and more, the past few days, I've been having trouble reading. It's like I can't see the words."

It hit Spencer just then. That had been why he was asking if it was really her. He wasn't sure that he was awake.

"Like even know?" Stiles asked.

Stiles stood and looked up at the chalkboard behind Scott. "I can't read a thing."

! #$# !

Spencer kept an even closer eye on Stiles than she ever had for the rest of the day. Scott could relearn control; she was sure of it, but Stiles… Would he be able to feel normal again? Spencer was worried for her best friend, but she tried not to show it.

After school was over, the pair drove to the florist to pick up the floral order that the sheriff had made last week.

Stiles carried it into the sheriff's station when they arrived, placing it on his father's desk.

Spencer knew what the sheriff was working on and tried to distract Stiles by pointing at slight flaws in how the flowers were arranged.

Stiles rolled his eyes, fixing the flowers. "You know, the last time we brought one of these to her grave, it was stolen the same day." He looked at Spencer. "A hundred bucks, down the drain.

Spencer rubbed the back of his shoulder and leaned against Stiles in a quick hug.

The sheriff hadn't responded, which got Stiles' attention. "Hey, Dad?" Stiles looked over the desk, spotting his father on the floor surrounded by files.

The man looked up, finding them there.

"Hi, what are you doing down there?"

"Working." The sheriff said, looking back to the files. "And, hey, if somebody wants the flowers that badly, they can have them. It's the gesture."

Stiles moved around the desk, standing in front of his father.

Spencer noticed that Stiles' attention was more on the boxes and files around his father than his father talking. "Oof," she said aloud.

Stilinski looked up at Spencer with pursed lips.

Spencer widened her eyes. "Well, don't give me that look. You know we were coming. You should have cleaned up.."

Stiles turned to look back at Spencer. "You know what this is about?"

"I've been helping…." She said, looking down at the man on the floor.

Sheriff sighed. "I've been looking over some old cases from a more...illuminated perspective if you know what I mean."

Stiles turned a page over from a file on the desk, reading from it. "'Strange sighting of bipedal lizard man sprinting across the freeway.'"

Sheriff pointed to a pile in front of him. "Kanima pile."

Stiles dropped the file on the stack and scratched at his temple. He crouched in front of his father. "Dad, you're not going back through all your old cases, seeing if any of them had something to do with the supernatural, are you?"

"I admit, the recent opening of my eyes to the greater mystery of the universe has got me reassessing. There's at least a hundred cases here, where I look at the details, and I can ask myself, 'If I knew then what I know now.'"

"Right, but are you sure you wanna go down that path?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Stiles looked up at Spencer. "And you were helping?"

Spencer nodded, looking from Stiles to the sheriff. "I think it'll put your mind at ease to know that it wasn't incompetence." She shrugged, raising her brows. "I wanted to tell you about the supernatural months ago. Before an evil druid kidnaped you."

Sheriff shook his head with a half-smile. "There's one case in particular that I can't get out of my head." The sheriff stood from the floor.

"The Tate Case?" Spencer moved around to join the Stilinski men.

Stilinski nodded, opening a folder he'd pulled from his desk. "Eight years ago, I was elected sheriff of Beacon County." He passed the folder to Stiles, letting him look it over. "My first official duty was to tell a man that not only had his wife, and two kids died in a car accident, but as best as we could tell, the body of his oldest had been dragged from the wreck by coyotes."

"You mean dragged and eaten?" Stiles questioned.

Stilinski didn't respond. "We didn't find the car until three days after the crash. They had driven off the road into a pretty deep ravine. Two bodies that were still in the car were covered in bites and slashes."

"So, you're thinking 'bites and claw marks,' probably a werewolf attack?"

"Maybe."

"The problem with the original story was that coyotes scavenge. They wouldn't have left, just bites and scratches. They would have taken everything." Spencer explained. "That's when we pulled out the calendar."

The sheriff pointed to a date in the file, highlighting a tiny sticky note Spencer used to label it with 'Full Moon.'

"The accident happened on a full moon," Stiles stated.

"Yeah," The sheriff confirmed.

Stiles closed the file and looked at the other boxes. "Hey, Dad? Where are all these going?"

Spencer furrowed her brow, not having thought of that question herself.

The sheriff looked between the two teenagers. "Yeah, we uh… We should probably talk about that." He grabbed one of the boxes and turned it so they could see the transfer label.

Spencer looked closely at the label, seeing 'Special Agent McCall' on every single one. "You're kidding," she scoffed.

"Unfortunately, Agent McCall is building a case against me. Trying to get me fired from my job as sheriff."

"What the hell?" Stiles asked, looking at Spencer.

"Well, that I didn't know."

Sheriff quickly tried to calm his son. "She didn't know. I didn't want either of you to find out. I was going to try and fix it before it got too bad."

"Well, you are going to fix it, right?"

Sheriff nodded, though he still seemed unsure.

Spencer narrowed her eyes. "You know, it doesn't surprise me that Agent Douchebag has his greasy fingers in this."

The sheriff shook his head with a chuckle. "You shouldn't call him that."

"You should have told me that before the name stuck," Spencer said with a smirk. She let out a sigh. "Can we go wish Matka a happy birthday, please? I've been telling myself not to cry all day, and I'm not sure how much longer that's going to last." Spencer walked over and straightened the flowers she'd pointed out to Stiles earlier.

The sheriff offered Spencer a small smile at the reminder of the girl's name for his wife. "Yeah, let's go."