Chapter three: Filling the gaps (surprisingly quickly)

It didn't take as long as I excepted for my phone to ring. Only when I answered the call, it wasn't from who I thought it would be.

"Hello?" I asked, mentally crossing my fingers.

"Lorraine? That's you right? Got this number from the principal." Lydia's voice sounded from the other end of the line. I let out a sigh as I let myself fall onto my bed.

"Yes, it's me. Why are you calling?" I asked, looking up at the white ceiling. I should paint that some day. Green, maybe black. Or both.

"I'm throwing a party Friday night, thought it'd be a good time to catch up."

"Look Lydia, I-"

"Perfect." Lydia said, not even letting me finish my sentence. "It starts at eight, my place, I'll send you the address. See you there!" I let out a scoff as she hung up. If this was the way that chick was trying to become friends with me (again, I suppose), she clearly hadn't been that close me. Or else she'd known that I didn't like being ordered around.

I sat up straight and started taking off my black boots when my phone rang again. With a frown I picked it up.

"Hello?" I asked once again, for a second thinking that it might be Lydia again.

"Hey Lorraine… so I was wondering, you know since you gave me your number, and told me to call if there was something, not, not that there is something, no, not at all I was just wondering if… you'd want to… hang out?" An almost victorious smile grew on my face.

"Yeah, sounds good." I said, wincing when my stomach grumbled ferociously. Stiles let out a nervous laugh.

"You want me to order a pizza?" he asked. Another rumble came from my stomach, making him chuckle.

"Well there's your answer." I said, pushing myself off the bed to sit up straight. "Text me the address, be there in a mo." With that I hung up the phone and jumped off the bed. Footsteps sounded from the hallway, probably dad noticing the sudden activity in my room. As I was putting my black leather jacket on, there came a knock from the door followed by dad opening it.

"You going somewhere?"

"Stiles, Scott's best friend, asked me to come over." I said, zipping up the jacket and turning towards dad. "Apparently he was my friend before, so with him I'll get Scott to trust me." Contrary to my expectations, dad didn't seemed pleased at all. Instead, the blood seemed to drain away from his face. And that did not happen often.

"Stiles Stilinski?" he asked, his expression stoic.

"What about him?" I asked, a small frown forming on my face. What could be so concerning about Stiles? I'm pretty sure the guy would trip over a butterfly. Dad shook his head, looking down at the floor.

"Lora, we need to talk." he said. I let out a small groan.

"I promised Stiles I'd get there as soon as I could, can it wait?" I asked, already walking to the door. A hand grabbed my arm, stopping me. Dad forced me to turn around and face him.

"Your mother wasn't the only one in the car during accident." I froze at his words, from what he'd always told me mom had been alone. He loosened his grip on my arm and allowed me to step back before continuing. "You were there too." It was like I ran into a brick wall. Me? There? I had no memory whatsoever of being there. Dad saw the confusion and let out a sigh. He then directed me to my bed where we both sat down.

"You were in the back seat. Your mother died on impact, but you survived. The crash damaged your brain, you were out for a while. When you woke up, you couldn't remember the past year or so. You could only remember trivial things, but your brain seemed to compensate the missing memory by just making assumptions."

"When was this?" I asked, frowning at him.

"The day we left Beacon Hills. You two were on your way to pick me up from work, just out of town." he said, confusing me even more.

"What kind of work? Was it a job?"

"I was security guard at an institution, but that doesn't matter. I told you this so that you understand what's going on if people seem to know you. Lydia, Stiles, Isaac. They were nice kids, you know. Go easy on them." he said, patting my back as a sign he was done. I had even more questions (like who the hell this Isaac kid was), but I'd left Stiles waiting long enough. After saying goodbye to my dad I took the car and drove to his house, making a mental note to check my list of friends for Isaac.

~o~

Stiles' house wasn't huge, but not small either. Just a simple two story home with a driveway for the car. I parked my car on the side of the road and walked over to the front door. The ringing sound of the doorbell made me wince at its volume. However, Stiles didn't seem bothered by it when he opened the door.

"Hey, Lorraine." he said, giving me a small smile. He kept leaning against the door, no sign he was about to leave me in. I tilted my head and looked at him, waiting for him to realise. After a while his face went blank and his eyes widened. "Oh! Right! Yes, yes, come in. Jus-" he opened the door further and stepped aside to let me in.

"Thanks." I said, amused by his awkwardness. Once inside I took off my jacket, which Stiles took from me to hang up. While he was gone I took a look around. The house seemed simple enough, with some clutter here and there. The floor looked like no one had hoovered there in days.

"So." Stiles' voice came from my left. My head shot up to see him walking towards me. "Pizza is on it's way, should be here in about…" the loud ringing was back again, making me wince. Stiles muttered an apology and walked to the door, taking two pizza boxes from the deliverer. He turned around, eyes scanning the room.

"Ehh…. here." he said, handing them to me before turning back to the deliverer. He took his wallet out of his pocket and paid him, shouting a thanks before shutting the door. My stomach let out yet another growl at the smell of the pizzas in my arms, making me wince. Stiles and I stood there for a moment, staring at whatever but each other.

"I seem to be still holding the pizzas." I said. "My stomach suggests we do something else with them."

"Yes, right." he said, taking the pizzas and walking ahead of me towards the kitchen. Like the rest of the house I'd seen so far, it was simple. A standard kitchen with a dinner table and some chairs. Said dinner table being full of news articles and police reports.

"Yeah… that's my dad's." Stiles said, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet. "We could also eat upstairs?" he suggested. We walked upstairs and passed a couple of doors before he stopped in front of his room. And then he didn't move for about five seconds.

"Stiles?" I asked, a frown forming on my face.

"Sorry, wait here." he said, pushing the pizzas into my arms yet again and entering his room. The door was shut right in front of me, noises of things being shoved aside coming from the other side of it. After a minute or so the door swung open. I did my best to supress a grin.

"Now you done?" I asked. He nodded and let me enter. His room was typical, but had it's own little twist that seemed to suit Stiles. My grin widened at the posters on the wall. "All Time Low, huh?" I asked, setting down the pizzas on the desk. "Nice choice. You should try out Fall Out Boy while you're at it." I turned around to see him grinning at me. Funny, I think this was the first time he'd actually seemed confident. I raised my eyebrows at him, as if to ask: What?

"You're into that kind of music now. Doesn't surprise me."

"It's not really an uncommon thing, you know." I said, turning around to open the first pizza box. Pepperoni, bacon, chicken, and mushrooms. My favourite.

"Hope you still like that, because the other one is all mine." he said, taking his own box. I stuck out my tongue at him.

"In fact I do like this. What do you have, then?" I said, taking a slice and sitting down on his desk chair. He grinned at me.

"Hawaii."

I made a gagging sound, pretending to throw up, which only made him laugh.

"Please tell me that you aren't going to eat that."

"You always say that!" he complained, taking a bite.

"It's fruit!" I exclaimed. "On a pizza! That, my good sir, isn't natural." I took another bite of my pizza.

"Yeah, because that much meat and salt is." Stiles said, being a sarcastic little bitch. I rolled my eyes at him, though it didn't end up as convincing as I hoped it would. Maybe it was because I was laughing.

We sat there eating for a while, and I knew what had to happen next. I had to tell him.

And tell him I did.

His eyes got a bit watery near the end, though he pretended that they weren't. I expected him to become uncomfortable. To say he was sorry, or that it must've been horrible. The usual stuff which didn't really apply to me because, well, I didn't even remember. I did remember my mother, of course, but I didn't remember losing her. Just not having her in my life. I was still surprised when he didn't say any of those thing I'd expected him to say.

Instead, he looked at me and… understood. I felt my heart sink to my stomach as I realised, because there was really one way that he could understand.

"What happened?" I asked. To my surprise, I felt a lump forming in my throat. Maybe it was part of my memory trying to tell me that this guy in front of me was my friend, and I had cared for him. Maybe it was just something all children who had this in common felt when they met each other. Maybe I was being a little bitch about it.

"Frontotemporal dementia." Stiles said, his eyes becoming watery yet again. "Parts of the brain shrink, causing dementia and eventually-" he didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't need to. I didn't know what to say. Simply because one: I didn't want to tell him that "I was sorry for him" and all that stuff, and two: I just wasn't a great conversationalist when it comes to emotions. So instead, I asked him a question.

"When?"

"About three months after you left."

"You and your father?"

"Coping."

"Change of subject?"

"God, please."

We ended up chatting about basically anything but that or the supernatural, but we both knew that the latter is what the conversation would eventually lead up to. And it did.

"So, you're a protector?" Stiles asked.

"No shit sherlock." I said, finishing my last slice. Too bad, that pizza tasted amazing. Stiles shifted, somewhat uncomfortably. I closed the pizza box and turned towards him. "Scott is going to be fine. He just needs some help."

"And you can give him help?" Stiles asked, standing up from his bed and walking to his computer. "Because I've been doing research and there's all this stuff that can trigger a shift and-"

"And I know how to help." I said, standing up and walking towards him. There were four tabs opened on his browser, all sites with information on werewolves and the supernatural. I had to admit, he'd done some good research.

"Can I try something?" he asked, opening a new tab.

"Depends on what it is." I said, turning around to sit on the desk. He typed something into the search bar and logged into a site. From what I'd gathered, it was a gaming site. I let out a groan.

"Stiles, I am not helping you defeat pixels."

"Yes you are. The developers of this game have done a shit load of research, and from what I know, it's pretty damn accurate." he said, dragging the desk chair over and positioning himself on it, in front of the computer. "I need to know whether you actually are who you say to be." I tilted my head at him, frowning.

"You don't trust me." He let out a sigh.

"I trust you, okay? Scott doesn't. Which is rare, because Scott trusts everyone." he explained, using wild hand gestures at first but then stopping. "Besides, maybe you're not as good as you claim to be." I clenched my jaw and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Is that a fucking challenge, Stillinski?" He grinned at me and I let out a scoff as I realised I'd done exactly what he'd expected me to do. "Fine." I said, letting myself fall off the desk and walked to stand next to him. "Let's do this shit."

Contrary to my expectations, the game was so much fun. After a while, we'd developed a tactic. Stiles did the controls, shouted out the name of a monster whenever one appeared (even though I was sitting right next to him) and I'd say what to use against it. The team we were on was bad, like disastrous bad, but there was one round…

"Oh God, that's- that's a wendigo." Stiles said, dodging it's attacks. "What do we do, what do we do?" he asked.

"Shoot it!" I yelled, taking over the controls and running towards it.

"With what?" Stiles yelled, slapping my fingers away and taking the controls back.

"Heaviest gun, fire until dead. Before he eats you." I said. Stiles followed my instructions and we managed to kill it without getting too much damage done to ourselves.

By killing it we'd earned access to the boss fight of that round. We ended up in a field with gray grass and a gray sky, with a stonehenge-like structure in the middle of it.

"Where is it?" Stiles asked, trying to look around. Then, in the middle of the field, a reaper appeared.

"Okay, reaper." Stiles said, walking around it. He turned towards me when I didn't say anything. "Lora? What do we do?" I frowned and shook my head.

"Don't know. Reapers don't exist." Stiles' eyes widened and he looked back at the screen, making a series of confused (and frustrated) noises.

"Well I don't know how to beat it." he said, throwing his hands up in his frustration. "There are no reapers? Really? Something like it? Anything?" he asked, desperate. I wanted to tell him not to stress out, it was just a game after all. But, the thing was… I wanted to win this just as badly as he did, stupid as it was.

"Well, there are the Ravens." I said, shuddering involuntarily at the memory. I felt the claws pierce my back all over again, but it was like something itching: you feel it when you start thinking about it. At least that's what I figured.

"Good." Stiles said, clapping his hands. "How can you kill a Raven?"

"You can't." I said, shaking my head slightly. "You can't kill death." There came the confused noises again. I tried my best to remember something, anything how to defeat a Raven whilst ignoring the pain from my memory. Meanwhile Stiles did his best not to get us killed.

"Okay, what if we don't need to kill him, we just need to maim it?" Stiles said, dodging another attack.

"What's the point?" I snapped. "The Raven always gets you in the end, just like death." I slumped back into my chair.

So far, I'd done my best to convince myself that there was no point fretting over something that I couldn't avoid, hell, I might've convinced some of you I didn't care. Truth be told, I wasn't scared. I cared, oh yes I did, I dreaded it. But I'm not scared of dying. Doing what I do, that'd be pointless. No, because in that moment, the thing I'd realised from the very start of this, but that I'd pushed away since the second after, hit me. I'm not scared of death, I'm scared of what I would leave behind. Dad would be a mess. Stiles would be upset, I guess. Lydia… I don't even know. But dad, Jason, the other protectors… I didn't want them to be sad, to get hurt. I didn't-

"Lora?"

I wanted to gasp for air, but instead I coughed. In the end I was a mess, tears in my eyes as I tried to breath.

"You blacked out." I looked to my left, where Stiles sat, staring at me in concern.?

"As I said, you blacked out." Stiles said. I closed my mouth, which had been hanging open.. Still a bit dazed, I looked around. I was still in his room, only the computer screen was now black.

"Did we win?" I asked, making Stiles laugh.

"Yes, of course, I saw you suddenly stare ahead of you without responding to anything and proceeded to play the game." He said, shaking his head at me. I repositioned myself on the computer chair, and it was silent for a while.

"Do you… need anything?" Stiles asked. I shook my head. I wanted to pretend like it hadn't happened, me fainting. To just continue playing some stupid game.

"I think I'm going to head home." I said instead, taking out my car keys of my pocket. Stiles' eyes widened and he shook his head.

"No, no way Hield, you are not driving home just after blacking out, no way." He said, snatching the keys out of my hands. I let out a "hey!" In protest, but to no avail, he'd stuffed the keys in his pockets. Oh, I wasn't having any of that. Doing the opposite of what he'd expected, I leaned in towards him, my face inches away from his.

"I'll be fine." I whispered, grabbing the keys from his pocket before pulling away. Judging by his face, he was more than a little uncomfortable. Good. "Thanks for the pizza. Oh, and make sure you and Scott keep your fifth hour free tomorrow."

"Wh- bu- we have chemistry the fifth hour." He protested, though it came out weak, like a whisper.

"Not anymore you don't. I'll talk to the teacher." I said, walking to the door. I heard Stiles scoff behind me as he followed me into the hallway.

"You can't just talk with mister Harris, he'll slaughter you!" He said as we walked down the stairs. I just smirked at him.

"You can't. I can. See you tomorrow, Stillinski." I said, opening their front door and walking towards my car.

"Yeah, tomorrow Hield." He said, watching me open my car. Or at least attempt to, because when I wanted to, my car key wasn't on my keychain any more. I'm not sure how I'd missed that, but then again it was the only key missing. Stiles let out a laugh and I heard the door being shut. I turned around and saw him walking towards me, a glint of light in his hand.

"You asshole!" I said, though I couldn't help but let out a laugh. Didn't like to admit it, but I was impressed by Stiles. Speaking of which, he now slipped past me and quickly got into the driver's seat before I could interfere. I let out a huff. He'd won. This time. In an act of protest, I didn't talk the entire ride home, which seemed to amuse Stiles more than anything else. Oh little did he realise…

We stopped at my house and he gave me the key back, grinning smugly at me. He really hadn't thought this through, had he?

"Well then, thanks I guess." I said, attaching the key to my keyring. "Have a nice ride home, and don't forget: fifth hour!" I turned on my heel and started walking to the front door. Almost made my way to it , that was how long it took him to realise. An irritated groan echoed through the street, followed by the sound of someone smacking himself in the face.

"I would give you a ride home," I said, searching for the right keys to open the front door. "But like you said, no way I'm driving right?"

Stiles bowed his head a mumbled something, a few curse words. I let out a laugh. "Tell you what, I'll get you a cab, as a thanks for the pizza." And with that, I opened the door and entered my house.

Once in the living room I messaged dad's chauffeur, Joey. Would take him around three minutes to get here. On the coffee table was a note from dad. Working late, see you tomorrow. D. I kicked off my boots before walking upstairs. Get some homework done and then plan for tomorrow. Yeah, that sounded good.

A/N: So, another chapter! I think that I'm just going to say that there'll be a new chapter each Friday/Saturday, because this is already the second time I'm doing it on a Friday so why not.

Also, I don't know if any of you even noticed, but I've finally found the actress that resembles Lorraine like I wanted her to: Olivia Holt! I also changed to cover to an edit I made of Lorraine and Stiles. It's not the best, but I hope you like it! I know that this chapter was kind of short, I try to make them a minimum of 4k each, but this is around 3.5K. I hope you enjoyed it anyway :)

I can now also confirm that: The story will follow the show from chapter eight onwards. Until then it'll be like it is now: the events are a bit scrambled, with original chapters inbetween. I do plan on keeping original scenes and chapters in the story.

Also: I just noticed that the scene breaks I've been disappeared when I put them into docs, so I'll fix that when I have time for it.

Thank you all for reading, and I'll see you next week with a new chapter!

~Lilly