Chapter 3 - The Policy

"Dude, what the hell?"

"I don't know."

"No seriously, dude! What the hell?!"

"I don't know, Stiles!" Scott barked. Stiles groaned, smacking his hand into the steering wheel and glancing in his rearview mirror again. They'd just dropped Sadie off at Lydia's house, after hearing the extremely unsettling news that Sadie and Derek knew a lot more about each other than they were supposed to. Sadie didn't know anything about Derek, really, but the fact that she knew him at all was more than Stiles was comfortable with. He didn't want them anywhere near each other. Currently, he was half expecting the creepy werewolf to pop up in his rearview mirror, flip him the bird and then prance into the Martin household to ruin some more lives. Stiles narrowed his eyes at the empty road, watching the house dutifully until they had pulled around a corner.

"Okay," he sighed, forcing himself to take a deep breath. "What the hell could Derek want with Sadie?"

"I…don't…know," Scott repeated with a glare. Stiles was hardly intimidated. His best friend might have been a werewolf, a concept he'd only really grasped when he'd tried to kill him last week, but he was still Scott. And since he still looked distinctly human, Stiles felt like he was in the clear. He had to ask these questions, whether or not they were things they wanted to hear.

"I mean, is being friends with Allison enough of a reason to keep her on the radar?" he pressed. Scott sighed, resting his head in his hands and doubling over.

"I don't think so," he confessed. "I mean, it sounds like she stood up to him, but it shouldn't be a good enough reason to tail her." He paused for a moment before slouching back in the passenger seat. "I don't know. Maybe it's nothing."

"N-Nothi-Nothing?!" Stiles stammered. "'Maybe it's nothing'?! Scott! It's a freaking psycho wolf who's apparently stalking and investigating everyone you come in contact with! How—How is that not something?! Why are you not freaking out about the fact that Derek even knows who they are?!"

"I am freaking out, Stiles!" Scott burst, sitting up straight in his seat again. "I'm not saying that it's good or that we shouldn't try to—to keep them safe! All I'm saying is that it doesn't mean he's stalking them! He—He can't be stalking them…" His voice was just slightly quieter as he finished, as if he was trying to convince himself that the monster that had bitten him wasn't keeping an eye on his girlfriend. Stiles balked.

"Scott, Derek showed up at the library while Sadie was working," he spat, glancing back and forth from his friend to the road. "He pretty much told her straight up that he was following her. 'I'm sure I'll see you around, Sadie'? I mean, come on, dude!"

"Maybe he was just following you?" Scott suggested, having the nerve to almost sound hopeful. Stiles narrowed his eyes.

"Wow, yes, thank you, Scott," he clipped. "That makes me feel loads better. Thank you so much for putting the image of a hulking, homicidal werewolf watching me into my head! Thank you!"

"Derek knows I'm counting on you," Scott tried to reason. "He knows you were doing research. Maybe he was trying to find out how much you knew."

"Or, maybe he was trying to kill me," Stiles bit back. "You know, with his werewolf teeth?! Or claws?!" Scott groaned and slammed his back into the passenger seat. "And—And how does that explain anything about why he even knows Sadie's name?"

"It doesn't," Scott sighed, shaking his head. "He knew about Allison though. I mean, he could have heard her name anywhere. We were at her party on the full moon."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Werewolf hearing," Stiles grumbled, slouching forward. His fingers tapped anxiously on the steering wheel, and even though the house was long gone, his eyes flicked up to glance in the rear view mirror. "I still don't want him anywhere near her." He saw Scott look over at him out of the corner of his eye, probably even more surprised than he was by the ferocity in his voice. However, he refrained from commenting on it.

After that, the ride to Scott's house was basically silent. They did eventually come to the conclusion that, as much as they wanted to know the reasoning behind Derek's small chat with Sadie, asking him about it was out of the question. They weren't going looking for Derek after they'd gotten him thrown in jail for killing his sister, even if they weren't a hundred percent sure now that he'd murdered her. Hopefully, when they had the misfortune of running into Derek again, they'd be able to grill him about it. Until then, the best they could do was to try and stay close to Allison and Sadie.

Honestly? Not something Stiles felt like complaining about.

"Hey, man," Scott offered as he hopped out of the Jeep. He glanced at his house before turning back to his friend with a small grin. "Thanks for coming today."

"Meh, don't sweat it," Stiles shrugged, waving him off. But Scott was insistent.

"No, really," he went on. "I mean, I know I should be kind of bummed that it wasn't just me and Allison, but I think it's good we went out in a group first. She had a nice time, and we've got another date lined up and… Thanks for making sure we could go."

"Dude, I'm your wingman," Stiles laughed, rolling his eyes. "It's what I do. Besides, it's not like I had anything better to do, or you asked me to do something crazy weird. Like, 'Woah, Stiles, I need you to eat food, help your friend get his girl and talk to this hot chick for me." They chuckled in unison, until Scott suddenly stopped, a smirk growing over his face.

"She was really happy you came," he informed him, raising his eyebrows in a slight, suggestive manner. Stiles's eyebrows also rose, though in confusion rather than teasing.

"What?"

"Sadie," Scott explained, that strange smile still in place. "She pretty much thanked me for bringing you. She really hates third wheeling, so you were kinda her hero." Stiles actually snorted.

"Please. I'm anything but," he scoffed, giving his best friend a pointed look. "She called the Jeep a Stalkermobile, dude."

"I'm just saying…" Scott drawled, holding his hands up with mock innocence. For some reason, Stiles found the gesture incredibly annoying.

"I know what you're saying, and no," Stiles bit defensively. "I mean, yes, she's hot and undeniably awesome, but…stop." He saw Scott deflate just the tiniest fraction before he shrugged, lifting his hands.

"Hey, anything for my wingman," he replied. It was supposed to be casual, but Stiles could see the subtle suggestion underneath as Scott brought the term "wingman" back to the table.

"Ha, cute," he replied dryly, narrowing his eyes. "Now wing your face out of my line of vision." Scott sighed, but relented. He waved him off and then turned on his heel, heading back to his own room so he could write a poem about Allison or sharpen his canines, or whatever the hell it was he did alone these days. Stiles tried to put the conversation out of his mind, watching Scott duck inside before he headed off towards his own house. Unfortunately, the mental peace didn't last for long.

He'd barely reached the end of the street when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He slouched in his seat, struggling to fish it out without taking his eyes off the road. He waited until he reached a stop sign to look down, sure that there weren't any cars impatiently waiting for him to move, and then opened the new text message.

"Now you know when to answer. –Sadie Bennet"

Stiles grinned down at the screen, bouncing the phone in his hand. He had her phone number. He had a girl's phone number, a popular girl's phone number, Lydia Martin's best friend's phone number. And she'd given it to him willingly, not just because she needed something. What alternate dimension was he suddenly living in?

Stiles tried to ignore any and all excitement as he tapped her number into his phone and saved it in his contacts. He had to stay calm. Because there was nothing to be excited about. Sure, she was attractive, and funny, and they had similar tastes in movies, but that was it. He couldn't really be friends with Sadie Bennet. He couldn't let himself.

Stiles had a policy about attractive girls. Or rather, he had a philosophy. It couldn't be a policy really, since he'd never had to act on it before. Fine then. Stiles had a philosophy about attractive girls. You don't befriend them. At all. Befriending hot girls was a dangerous, dangerous business that lead to a whole bunch of dangerous places that he didn't want to be.

It's not like he didn't think guys and girls could be friends. They could. Stiles had plenty of friends who were girls that he had no problem with. Okay, maybe not plenty, but it was a feasible thing. But Sadie was not any girl. Sadie belonged to the same class as Allison and Lydia, a higher class of aesthetically gifted females that any teenage boy wanted and became a fumbling idiot around. And you couldn't just befriend girls like that. There was no hanging out, because as soon as you started casually hanging out with a hot girl, you took yourself off the table. You put yourself in the comfort zone, threw yourself into the pile with brothers and gay best friends. And that pit was far too hard to climb out of. It happened all the time in movies, where the popular, hot person falls for the dweeby friend they've known forever, but Stiles was a realist. This was not a Blockbuster movie or hit television show. This was hard, cold reality, which meant no hot girls falling for nerdy guys.

Sure, Sadie was not Lydia. But he couldn't pick and choose which hot girls he could be friends with and which ones he couldn't. That was the whole point of having a policy in the first place. It was a blanket rule. Getting close to Sadie would start him down a slippery slope into the friend zone. Not just with her, but will all hot girls in general. And considering his track record with the female gender so far in life, he wasn't sure that was a gamble he could afford to make. In fact, he was adamantly sure that he could not afford it. It would cause too many problems. He wouldn't do it.

Stiles jumped a bit as his phone went off in his hands, pulling him back to reality. He was still sitting at the stop sign, and while there were still no cars around, he figured it would be best to keep moving. He pulled through the intersection, chancing to open the message while the car was still in motion. Another text from Sadie.

"BTW, keep your eyes on the road, Stilinski."

Stiles smirked, shaking his head and tossing his phone into the passenger seat.

Of course, Sadie wasn't making it easy to not be friends with her. She was surprisingly easy to talk to considering her physique and social circle, and beyond that, she was generally and genuinely awesome. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea that he'd just had lunch with Lydia's best friend, and spent the meal talking about the filming techniques of classic monster flicks instead of stumbling over his words and drawing a blank for conversation topics. She'd invited him to her party, and then actually spent time with him there, letting him get her a drink and then listening to him ramble about the intricacies of the online gaming community he was a part of. Even the virtual battling of mythical creatures hadn't seemed to scare her away just yet. She joked with him at the lacrosse game, held up a conversation at lunch, willingly gave him her phone number. He didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it all seemed a little too good to be true.

Of course, this was all strictly platonic. Not that he'd ever been good at flirting, or been flirted with, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what was happening here. And since she was only interested in being his friend, it'd be dangerous to comply.

Then again, he liked Lydia. He'd always liked Lydia. And if he wanted to have a successful relationship with Lydia, he'd eventually have to be friends with her friends, especially close ones like Sadie. So what if he started making friends before he was romantically obligated to by a relationship? Maybe if he was friends with Sadie, Lydia would actually notice him, and she would be attracted to him. But he didn't want to think about it like that. That sounded like he was using Sadie, which wasn't what he was trying to do. He just had the honesty and common sense to recognize that there were certain perks to being associated with her.

Besides, he'd already told Scott he'd help keep an eye on her to keep her safe. And since she was Allison's best friend, and he was Scott's, they'd probably be seeing a lot of each other. There was really no way to avoid her, so there wasn't any harm in being friendly, right? But he wouldn't get too close. Just an acquaintance. Anyone they were close to was bound to get dragged into this whole werewolf mess, and that was what he was trying to prevent her from doing with Derek. He could only get close enough to Sadie to keep her out of harm's way. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, but any closer than that and she would start asking questions, and he couldn't let that happen.

Before he could stop himself, his eyes slid over to the passenger seat again. He eyed the cellphone, Sadie's name still shining brightly on the screen, and his lips tugged up into a smirk.

Yeah. This was going to be very not easy.

A/N: Hello, hello, hello! I am SO sorry that this took so long to get up. I've been drowning in homework, and it literally felt like my soul was crumbling because I hadn't written in over a week. But! I'm caught up on my work for now, and I have a pretty good map of the one shots I want to do. As should come as no surprise, it wound up being a lot more than the four I originally planned. Another thing to check out, I put up a video on my blog answer some questions about what's happening in the sequel, so be sure to go look! If you guys have other questions, feel free to send them to me!

So, I really wanted to write this chapter to explain Stiles's mind set. There's a reason that this story is a slow burn, and it's because Stiles is a one-woman kind of man. It takes him a long time to fall for Sadie and admit it. He talks a little bit about being friends with hot girls in episode 3, and I wanted to expand on that idea about how he's wary of Sadie and why.

Anyway, I hope you guys liked it, and hopefully the next chapter will be up a lot sooner! Let me know what you think!

-Brittney