Chapter Twelve - Force of Habit.

A bead of sweat slowly began to roll down the side of Kyle's face as he continued gliding down the middle of the street. The post-summer sun was still managing to aggressively push through the early autumn clouds as the teenager skated along. He was manoeuvring his hockey stick and the puck so effortlessly that it was as if his roller skates were actually an attachment of himself. Finally, as the most precise moment rolled around, Kyle glanced up at the goal in front of him, gritted his teeth together and then swung back with all of his might and smacked the puck as hard as he could.

With all the confidence in the world, Kyle stood back and looked over to where he had hit the puck, expecting to see it fly into the back of the goal. Instead, he felt his appearance immediately drop as the small, black piece of rubber harmlessly bounced off the unnatural gut of the goalkeeper.

Frowning through his sour expression, Kyle groaned, "Goddamn it, Cartman!"

"Ha, ha!" Cartman chuckled to himself, "My hockey body is as sweet as ever."

"For the millionth time, your body is not sweet for hockey, or for anything else, you fat fuck!"

Looking on from where he stood at the opposite goal, Stan leant against his hockey stick as he pulled his mask up from over his face. With a roll of his eyes, he sighed. It was that damn typical of Kyle and Cartman to end up arguing with each other that the dark haired boy certainly should have just expected it by now. He glanced over to Kenny and hopelessly shrugged his shoulders while their two other friends continued to insult and yell at each other.

While Kenny was about six months into his new job at the South Park mechanics, Stan, Kyle and Cartman had just finished their second week of eleventh grade. They had chosen the warm, September afternoon to hit the hockey puck around and practice for their monthly game approaching in a couple of weeks. But of course, their pleasant plans had ended with Cartman and Kyle jumping down each other's throats again.

And yet, funnily enough, Stan didn't even care that much. As a small smile crossed his face, he couldn't deny that this was the happiest he had been in the longest time.

Ninth grade had been a constant struggle for him to drag himself out of the pit of despair Wendy had left him in. Tenth grade had been a slow, tip-toeing race to try and find comfort within himself again. But now in eleventh grade, he finally felt like he had fully healed and was back to normal. Stan was free.

Just as he was about to turn back to Kenny and call out to him, Stan jumped slightly at the sound of his phone suddenly ringing. The dull noise echoed from his sport bag that sat on the sidewalk, and as he slowly walked over and retrieved it, Stan could only frown at what he read on the screen. He was definitely receiving a phone call, but the part that was throwing him off was the text flashing on the screen that read 'Blocked Number'.

Falling to hesitation for a couple of mere moments, Stan soon heaved his shoulders once more as he swiped across the touch screen and brought the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

The second that he was met with nothing but utter silence, Stan felt his brow collapse again, "Hello?"

For the sharpest second, the dark haired boy swore that he could hear a soft gasp reverberate through the phone and into his ear. Although, before he even had the chance to open his mouth and question it, whoever the mystery person was at the end of the line abruptly changed their mind and hung up the phone.

With the dial tone beeping over and over again into his brain, Stan held his phone out in front of him and gazed at the now blank screen, "What the hell…"

"Stan!"

The sound of his blonde friend calling his name made Stan snap his neck around and stare back over to where Kenny and the other two were standing. He glanced down at the device in his hand for a quick second longer though, curiosity still sitting in the back of his mind.

"C'mon, dude," Kenny went on, "I think these two homos have finished sorting out their relationship problems."

Instantly grinning at the remark from Kenny, Stan chuckled. Kyle and Cartman may have been as opposite as two people could possibly get, but if there was one thing they could ever agree on, it was when they were being jointly insulted.

"Shut up, Kenny!" they yelled out in unison.

Hoisting his hockey stick up over his shoulder, Stan kept on laughing to himself. His friends were nuts and ridiculously vulgar, but then again, so was he. They made him happy – these were the moments that never failed to make him happy. And, in fact, they had also made him quickly forget about his anonymous phone call. Throwing his phone back into his duffle bag, Stan completely disregarded the thought as he pulled his face mask back down and ran over to where the game was starting again.

Whoever it was, obviously had the wrong number.

The loud grumbling noises erupting from Wendy's stomach could not have possibly felt any more overwhelming. But sadly, the dark haired girl still couldn't bring herself to eat anything.

It was now Monday afternoon, lunch time at school. There were near enough a thousand teenagers sitting around in the cafeteria, chatting away with one another and producing an energetic, cheerful atmosphere. But despite the amount of laughter going on at the table where she sat with her girlfriends, Wendy felt far from happy.

Ever since the previous afternoon when she had received the unexpected message into her online inbox, it was all Wendy had been able to think about. It absolutely consumed her, and realistically, when it came right down to it, it was making her feel like complete crap.

Trying to shake off the harrowing thought, the teenage girl sighed. She slowly tore open the hulking chicken, salad and caesar wrap that her mum had made for her for lunch and timidly took a small bite out of it.

This wasn't fair. The absolute last thing Wendy ever wanted was for her haunting past from Malibu to follow her all the way back to South Park.

"Geez, girl, don't eat that all at once."

Looking up at the sarcastic tone Wendy heard from above her, she smiled at Bebe as her best friend bent down and sat in the seat next to her. She quickly began to focus on holding a blissful expression, not wanting to worry Bebe about anything that may or may not have been going on with her.

"Was your phone off last night?" the blonde girl recommenced, "I tried to call you when you didn't reply to my text?"

Thinking on her feet, Wendy simply nodded her head, "Oh, yeah. Sorry, it ran out of battery," she answered, "I left my charger in the car and couldn't be bothered to go downstairs and get it."

Wendy waited with a breath held in until Bebe eventually took the explanation blindly in her stride and began to eat her own lunch. With a slight twinge of guilt, Wendy gazed down into her lap.

She hated lying to Bebe, but something she hated even more was the thought of what else she may have been forced to read if she had received any more inboxes from Malibu. That was the real reason why she had switched her phone off. And why she had even left it at home and not brought it to school today.

Reluctantly deciding to bring her head back up and try to become more involved with the lunch time chatter, Wendy's eyes suddenly narrowed as a small smile crossed her face. She spotted Stan sitting at the next table over, in between Kyle and Darcy. He and the auburn haired beauty to his right seemed to be talking each other's ears off, and yet, while this would normally cause Wendy some slight sorrow, she could still feel herself smiling.

Catching all this out of the corner of her eye, Bebe gently nudged her best friend in the ribs, "So, any new developments from the little session you two had yesterday?"

Sensing her face flush pink, Wendy's grin grew wider, "Well… we're actually friends again."

It felt sort of strange for her to be saying that, considering she and Stan had been contently interacting with each other for over a week. But something just seemed more official about it for Wendy now. Maybe that was why seeing Stan with Darcy wasn't bothering her much anymore.

"Like, real friends again," Wendy confirmed.

"Well, thank God," Bebe exclaimed with a laugh, "Now just try to keep it that way."

Echoing her friend's giggles, Wendy glimpsed back over to Stan. She shook her head at his typical teasing nature as she caught him distracting Darcy just long enough for him to steal a spoonful of the pudding cup she was eating out of.

Soon enough, though, the red head figured him out and slapped him on the arm, igniting a playful fight between the two of them. Stan was chuckling as he tried to block Darcy off from hitting him again, but Darcy was gaining some advantage by grabbing onto the loose sleeves of Stan's football jacket. Quickly breaking away from her, he rolled up his sleeves and set back to work. However, it then wasn't long before the spirited back and forth came to a halt, and Wendy spotted something that caused immediate curiosity to spark in her mind.

The dark haired girl frowned, tilting her head to one side as she watched Darcy gently take one of Stan's arms in her grasp as she gazed down at it. She softly stroked his skin before bringing her eyes back up to meet his. The entire exchange was rather abrupt and definitely peculiar to Wendy where she sat nosily looking on.

Clearing her throat, Wendy put her attention back on Bebe and was just about to ask her if she had any idea what it all may have been about, when her intended prying was instead interrupted by one of the other girls.

"Should we go to the library now, Wendy?" Heidi asked from opposite the dark haired teenager, "I found a pretty good book for our presentation, but you can see what you think before I borrow it out."

Falling to an unprepared silence, Wendy quickly gathered her thoughts and nodded her head, "Oh, yeah, sure," she answered, briefly resuming her conversation with Bebe, "We've got gym after lunch, I'll cya' then?"

"Yeah, yeah, go get your work done," Bebe agreed, raising a sarcastic eyebrow, "Try not to be too distracted by thoughts of your new best friend."

Scoffing jokingly at the boldness in Bebe's tone, Wendy could only shake her head as she rewrapped her lunch and stuffed it back into her school bag.

She could always rely on her real best friend to be wonderfully blunt and unforgiving. It may have been annoying at times, but at least Wendy could be sure that if she ever needed to hear the hard truth about something, she would always be able to turn to Bebe. Similarly, the dark haired girl knew that there was something she could always rely on Stan for, as well.

Subtly spinning back around before disappearing behind Heidi towards the library, Wendy beamed elatedly at Stan. She didn't even have to be talking to him to have all her worries be washed away. Because since she happened to lay eyes on him sitting there in the cafeteria, she had been able to momentarily forget about all of Malibu related drama beginning to catch up to her.

Stan, on the other hand, had suddenly found himself in some drama of his own. From where he sat in the cafeteria beside Darcy, he frowned as she had abruptly stopped their game and latched onto his left arm.

Sighing at the way she gazed affectionately at him after examining his burnt scars, Stan carefully licked his lips, "Well, that's a buzzkill."

"No it's not," Darcy immediately retorted. She took a moment to make sure none of the other guys or girls at their lunch table were paying attention to them as she moved her grip from his arm to Stan's hand, "You know you can talk to me about this stuff."

The unexpected sombre tone in her voice had caught Stan off guard, "I do talk to you about this stuff."

"Not in detail," Darcy argued. She tried to soften for a moment. She understood that this may have felt random and maybe even slightly attacking to Stan, but these were the kind of thoughts that ran through Darcy's mind every time she spotted his bare arm and the burns that inhabited it. She gulped as she pushed on, "Like, you've never explained to me why…"

As the last word left Darcy's mouth, Stan felt his brow furrow even deeper. He tenderly took his hand away from hers as he pulled his sleeves back down and folded his arms against his chest, "Where is this coming from?"

Watching his scarred skin vanish beneath the fabric of his jacket, Darcy swiftly settled into an awkwardness as she tried to mull over a response. In all honesty, her bizarre question hadn't really come from anywhere. It was totally innocent, and was simply a mere result of her constant attempts to try and bring herself and Stan closer together. But judging by the reluctance in his reaction, Darcy was quickly wishing she had just kept her mouth shut.

Studying the concern that had swept over her face, Stan allowed his own appearance to relax. He turned to his side, facing Darcy as he swung one leg over the cafeteria bench. Gently he placed a kind hand on her knee, "I was sick… but then I got better," he spoke simply, "A lot better. And that's all you need to worry about, okay?"

It definitely wasn't any kind of secret. Way back when everything happened, Stan might have been sightly worried about what his friends and other people may have thought of him. But at the content point in his life that he was at now, he certainly wasn't going to waste his time trying to shield away an entire chunk of his past.

But at the same time, that didn't mean that Darcy was entitled to every single, tiny, little detail.

Letting his words process in her mind, Darcy soon smiled at Stan. She just needed to stop forcing their situation so much. She knew Stan wasn't going anywhere.

"Well, you're gonna' have more than that to worry about if you keep stealing my lunch!" she teased, effortlessly reverting the subject back.

In a matter of moments, Darcy was all smiles and giggles again as the two of them picked up where they left off. Stan tickled her as he snatched away her entire cup of pudding and their previous conversation was instantly forgotten. Well, forgotten for the moment, anyway.

As open as Stan may have been, he wasn't going to forget how carefully he had to tread whenever Darcy was daring enough to test her limits with him any time soon.

Even leading much later on into that night, Wendy still couldn't shake the uncomfortable feelings that dwelled in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't let go of the distress she felt from what she had read the previous afternoon, and she couldn't let go of the dread she felt to turn her phone back on.

It was starting to get late, and Wendy had been up for ages on her computer trying to complete a part of her group history assignment. But for the life of her, she just couldn't concentrate. Her mind was cluttered with a thousand different fears that she never thought she was ever going to have to encounter again.

Thinking back to how her time in Malibu had come to such an abrupt end, Wendy could barely even comprehend it all for herself. And yet, despite how anxious she was feeling, the dark haired girl was craving some kind of distraction. Glancing over to her bedside table where her mobile phone sat, Wendy stewed in reluctant silence for a moment before she stood up from her computer chair and waltzed over to the opposite side of her bedroom.

Gazing down at the small, rectangular device, Wendy chewed nervously down on her bottom lip. Before she had the chance to convince herself otherwise, she hastily snatched up the phone and held down the power button, squinting slightly as the screen lit up.

Taking it and herself back over towards her computer, Wendy sat the phone down on her desk. And then she waited. She waited for the phone to start back up and waited for her service provider to relocate the phone and provide it with reception again. A slow breath expelled from her lungs as the only notifications that popped through were the text messages from Bebe from the night before.

Feeling a wave of ease wash over her, Wendy smiled at herself as she shook her head.

Had she totally been over reacting all this time? So she received a couple stupid messages from some jerk in Malibu - she had instantly deleted them and blocked him from ever contacting her again. That didn't mean her inbox was suddenly about to blow up in her face and dig up skeletons that she was nowhere near ready to explain or talk about.

Still laughing at her own silliness, Wendy turned back to her computer and saved the document she had been typing before opening a web browser and logging onto her social media profile. Slowly, the page loaded and she began to scan over the different photos and statuses posted by her friends over the last day. She was just about to click on something when out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that her message box actually did have one notification sitting in it.

Trying to stop her heart from plummeting into her guts all over again, Wendy calmly picked up her phone but only sighed when she found that it didn't yet match what her computer was telling her. Right as she was questioning whether or not to just shut everything down and go to bed, her phone finally decided to find the missing message and binged loudly as it entered her inbox.

Stifling a shaky breath, Wendy half-heartedly hoped it was just a random picture or funny web link from Bebe. But she wasn't that naive. As she reluctantly pointed her computer cursor to the message box, she opened it to find that it was yet another unknown boy who she had never spoken to before.

For the first time in a while, Wendy sensed a sob choke in the back of her throat as she read the text written on her computer screen.

'Hey I'm a freshman at MHS but I got told you're the chick to go to for some sexy pics, what do you say?'

Wendy wanted to sigh in sadness, but her chest felt so deflated that she could barely manage the breath to even cry. As a single tear slowly rolled down her cheek, she suddenly felt an almighty anger build up in her as she grabbed her phone and threw it back over to her bed. Collapsing her head to the desk, she finally gave in to her overpowering emotions as she sniffled loudly and allowed more tears to fall from her eyes.

She didn't want to bring these issues back to South Park with her, she really didn't want to have to go through all that. The dark haired girl had been so defiant, in fact, that she refused to even speak about any of it. But as the overwhelming weight of her world began to rapidly crash down on top of her, Wendy knew she had to give in if she ever wanted to feel any better.

Bringing her head back up from the desk, she wiped her stinging, red eyes on the back of her long sleeve pyjama top and reluctantly scrolled through her online contact list in search of Bebe.

Her best friend knew every exact detail of what had been going on with her. And as much as Wendy didn't want to worry her any further and much preferred to pretend that everything was okay, she knew that Bebe would want to know what was happening. Bebe would know what to do. And she would always, always help Wendy.

Opening the video chat box, Wendy tried to hold back even more tears as she clicked her mouse on Bebe's name and called her. The droning sound echoed painfully in Wendy's ears as with each ring that passed, she became more desperate for Bebe to answer.

"Come on," she muttered through her cracked voice.

A few more dismaying rings resonated through Wendy's room before the tone finally went flat and the video chat hung up on itself.

A further sob exploded from between Wendy's lips, "Shit!"

Collecting her face in her hands, she unwillingly snivelled some more and cursed to herself. She couldn't believe that this was happening all over again.

Pushing away the few strands of wet hair that were stuck to her tear stained face, Wendy lunged back towards her computer to try and reach Bebe one more time. But then, without any warning, her frantic panic instantly froze at the name of someone else who just happened to be online.

Releasing a half miserable sigh of relief, Wendy didn't even stop to think as she impulsively clicked a different icon. It was her newest online friend. It was Stan.

Wendy wasn't even given the chance to second guess her actions, as within a couple of short rings, the call was answered. The video setting was not enabled for either of them, but while she couldn't see him, Wendy's heart still stopped at the sudden sound of his comforting voice.

"…Wendy?"

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to soothe herself, Wendy tried her absolute hardest to speak without sounding upset, "Hey, Stan…"

There was a sharp silence before Stan's confused voice echoed back into Wendy's room, "What are you… It's almost eleven-thirty, what's going on?"

"Oh," Wendy stuttered, "Sorry, are your parents trying to sleep?"

"No – well, yeah, but that's not it," Stan answered, "I just… uh…"

Just as the frown settled into Wendy's face and she began to wonder what Stan was trying to say, she rapidly felt her heart begin to splinter at the muffled noise of a high pitched female voice singing out in the background behind Stan.

Wendy didn't have to be genius to figure it out, "…Darcy?"

If Stan hadn't been so thrown by the startling nature of the predicament he had unexpectedly just found himself in, he would have kicked himself as hard as humanly possible. For argument's sake, this was more or less the first and only time he, Wendy and Darcy had all been in contact with each other at the same time. And Stan didn't have the first clue what to possibly do.

Grinding his teeth together, he quickly turned his attention to Darcy as he called out from his family's study into his bedroom where she was waiting for him, "Just give me two minutes, babe."

Oh, good one, you fucking idiot!

Mentally punching himself along with the mental kick, Stan bit his tongue. Wendy had unavoidably heard what he had just shouted back to his red headed friend. She bravely tried to disregard it from her mind but her stubborn attitude was consuming her quicker than any other emotion she felt in that instant – which, frankly, Wendy didn't think was possible. It was all the fault of that one word – 'babe' – that one word that was only repeating itself in her head over and over again.

She had been an idiot to think that she could ever conceivably be fine with Stan placing affection on any other girl that wasn't her. Almost as much as an idiot she had been to ever call Stan in the first place.

Feeling reprieve at her silence, Stan cleared his throat, not knowing the sudden embarrassment that Wendy was actually feeling, "She, uh… We were just… studying late. I'm just about to drive her home."

"No, no, that's okay. Really," Wendy cut back in. She was on the verge of pleading with Stan as her strong façade quickly began to crumble around her and a third sob escaped her, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have even… I'll just leave you alone, I'm – "

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second," Stan harshly interjected. His cut-throat tone brought down another heavy hush as his eyes widened at the soft whimpering he could hear mumbling from between Wendy's lips, "Wendy, are you crying?"

Abruptly covering her mouth, Wendy shut her eyes tightly for a moment, trying to calm herself again. She definitely, one hundred percent did not want to admit anything to Stan, but she had somewhat of a feeling that the cat was already well out of the bag.

Starting to feel anxious for her wellbeing, Stan pressed on, "What's going on? What's the matter?"

"It – it just… it doesn't matter," Wendy insisted, "Look, I'm sorry, I was trying to call Bebe but she didn't answer, and then I saw you and… and… I dunno', it's just a stupid force of habit, I – "

" – Wendy, okay, so talk to me?" Stan's hands were beginning to shake. He was trying so hard to stay quiet so as not to alert Darcy, but the more he was hastily beginning to worry about Wendy, the more difficult it became for him to keep his cool, "It's fine, it's really fine, just tell me what's going on?"

His persistence was absolutely pulling at Wendy's heartstrings. Did Stan still honestly care about her this much?

"Or, look," he continued again, "I know we don't have a class together tomorrow, but you can come and find me if you want and – "

"Stan," she sliced back in, "Stan, no, it's okay. Really, it's okay. I'd rather just try and forget about it."

Waiting with an apprehensive breath held in, Wendy wiped her hands over her whole face and tried once more to make her sadness and her crying subside. Just as she was starting to speculate whether or not Stan was still on the line, the teenage girl licked her lips to speak again only to have her thoughts cut short by the slow, serious and genuine tone of Stan imploring her with his next words.

"Just know that no matter what's going on between you and me, and no matter what the circumstances are, I'm always going to be here for you, Wendy."

Uncontrollably, Wendy sensed all the colour drain from her face.

Did he just say that? Did Stan really just say that to her?

Her heart was suddenly racing. Faster than she had ever felt it race in the longest time, possibly even ever. Why did he have to do this to her? He was the one that said he wanted to be just friends.

Why did Stan have to make Wendy love him?

"Good night, Stan."

Without giving him the opportunity to say anything more, Wendy swiftly closed off the chat window and pushed herself away from the desk in her computer chair.

Her breath was still unbearably suffocating in her chest. For the few short moments in which she had been talking to Stan, Wendy had almost been able to settle all of her dizzying and crushing terrors and emotions. But now that he was gone, she was once again left with nothing but her frightening thoughts about all these boys messaging her online and what it was all going to possibly mean for her life back at home in South Park.

As for Stan, he was still sitting motionless at his computer. He took a shot at trying to dissect what the hell had just happened, but his head was so completely filled to the brink with concern for Wendy, that all he could will himself to do was worry about her.

Gritting his teeth together, he tugged his earphones out and threw them against the desk. More than anything, he wanted to find her first thing the next morning at school just to make sure she was alright. But then on the other hand, Wendy had asked him to drop it. And Stan certainly didn't want to upset her any further by bringing it all up again.

He just wished he knew what was wrong with her.

Finally deciding it was best to go and check on Darcy and drive her home, Stan stood up from his desk chair, fixing his blue and red poof ball hat. He didn't have the first clue how this was all going to affect his and Wendy's newly rebuilt friendship. In fact, in that moment, there was only thing he was absolutely certain of. And that was how goddamn sweet it had sounded to him to hear Wendy speak his name.

Wendy didn't feel particularly sweet, though. She didn't really feel like anything. Her mind was completely divided in two – two severely conflicting emotions, and she wasn't sure which one to pay more attention to. The fear she felt of her past catching up to her, or the fear she felt of falling in love with Stan all over again.

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Reneyyyyyyyyyy x