Isaac chickens out on Thursday. He doesn't go up to Stiles to talk about the ride situation. He sees him a few times, including at practice, but he doesn't open his mouth, he's too scared, too nervous, so when Friday rolls around, as bad as he feels about it, he has his aunt on stand-by for a ride.

"Hey."

Much to Isaac's surprise, when he looks up from where he's getting his books for first period from his locker, there's Stiles.

"You still need a ride today?"

"Um, if...if that's alright with you. I have gas money."

"Hey, don't worry about it." Stiles smiles. "Just wait for me after practice, or I'll wait for you, you know, just in the locker room, and when we're both ready, we'll go."

"Okay." Isaac nods. "Thank you."

The rest of the day sort of flies by in a haze, because Isaac's nervous. He's nervous about being in a confined space with someone that's not his aunt or his doctor. A part of him feels really, really stupid for being so scared about something that small, but at the same time, he just really wishes that he could teleport himself to therapy. Then again, if he did, he's pretty sure that his therapist would point out the importance of social interactions, even if one does have the ability to teleport.

He takes a long time, maybe too long, in the shower, but when he gets out and gets dressed, Stiles, true to his word, is sitting on one of the benches, fully dressed and ready to go, fiddling around on his phone.

"You ready?" Stiles asks, standing, tucking his phone into his pocket.

"Yeah." Isaac nods, and they make their way to the car.

At first it's silent. Almost five minutes, no one says anything.

Stiles doesn't reach for the radio dial, and Isaac is afraid to do it, because it's not his car, and his dad got so mad any time he tried to put on music, or change it, when his dad wasn't ready for that, but the silence is uncomfortable, at least to Isaac, so he forces out some words. Unfortunately, they're not the sort he wanted them to be.

"Why didn't you tell them?"

"Tell who?" Stiles asks.

"The kids at school," he states. "About me, about, you know, therapy."

"Because it's not their business," Stiles states. "And it's nothing to be ashamed of. When rumors get spread, the content is spread because someone thinks it's something to be ashamed of. It's not. You need help, and you're getting it. So am I. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Oh." Isaac nods. "I just..."

"You just assumed that everyone's got it out for you." Stiles finishes. "I understand that, there's a lot of buzz around you right now."

"Are you going to ask me about it?" Isaac asks, a sudden feeling niggling in the back of his mind, like maybe that is why Stiles offered him the rides, so he can figure out what's really going on with the Lahey situation.

"Nope." Stiles turns the car right, barely missing a red light. "It's not my business, and whatever's going on, it's on you to decide who to tell, and when to tell them. Anyone badgering you to doesn't want to know for the right reasons."

Even if Isaac did have something to say next, Stiles' words would have shocked him into silence. For another teenager, he seems so well adjusted, and Isaac wonders if that's just him, or if it's the years of therapy talking. Either way, this time, when they fall back into silence, it's comfortable, and Isaac is grateful for that.

When Stiles parks, he cuts the engine, but doesn't open the door right away.

"I think...what I said a few minutes ago, I just want you to know that it wasn't a brush off. I'll never, ever ask you to talk to me, but if you get to a point where you want to talk about it, or anything else, I don't want you think that I don't want to hear it. I know what it's like to some degree, to feel alone, like no one gets what your going through, like no one cares, and maybe I don't get what you're going through, maybe I won't, but..." he shrugs. "I do care. I may not know you well, but I don't want to see whatever this is beat you. I have always been lucky, I've always had my dad, Scott, to talk things through with outside of the doctor's office, and I don't know who you've got, but if you want me, you've got me, too."

With that, he gets out of the car and waits for Isaac to do the same. They head silently to the building, Isaac only speaking once they're both in the waiting room.

"Thank you," he says softly.

"Don't mention it. I'll see you after."

Stiles shoots Isaac a smile, and disappears into Dr. Keller's office, leaving Isaac to process the whole interaction, and, if nothing else, he thinks that Dr. Jacobsen will be proud.

He's right, of course, and when he walks into the office, the first thing that the doctor asks him is if he came in with Stiles.

Isaac nods and sits down on the couch, staring down at his feet, because in all honesty, he's still processing the interaction that he had with the other young man. Dr. Jacobsen reads the discomfort and looks at his patient, tilting his head to the side.

"Isaac?" He says softly. "Did it go badly?"

Isaac remains silent for a second, and just shakes his head, because no. It didn't. Stiles was nice to him, Stiles was compassionate. Stiles showed caring, and understanding that few had shown him at all, and there was something nice about that but at the end of the day, he was still just someone that Isaac hardly knew.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Dr. Jacobsen asks.

Isaac waits another minute, then raises his head to look at the doctor. "He was nice," Isaac says softly. "It was quiet, and sort of uncomfortable for part of the ride, but he was nice. He didn't pry, he told me that he wasn't going to, and that he was a safe place, if I ever needed to talk."

Dr. Jacobsen doesn't say anything, but his face splits into a grin.

"What?" Isaac asks softly.

"Isaac," Dr. Jacobsen says, smile still very much in place on his face, because he sees something in this whole interaction that Isaac hasn't been able to process yet, and honestly, might not be able to see, even if he had. "You made a friend."

"What? No I didn't. He just gave me a ride." Isaac is confused about how Dr. Jacobsen got from Stiles giving Isaac a ride to becoming his friend, and he's pretty sure that this is the first thing his doctor has been genuinely wrong about since he started seeing him.

"It wasn't just a ride," Dr. Jacobsen points out. "He offered to listen to you, to keep the things that you tell him between the two of you. I don't know how long it's been since you've had a friend, so maybe you don't know, but that's how it works, Isaac. He's offering to be there for you, and if that's not an offering of friendship, I don't know what it is."

"Oh." Isaac looks down at the ground, but he can't stop the small smile from making it's way onto his lips.

Isaac never really considered Stiles as a friend before, but that's because he doesn't spend much time at all considering anyone to be a friend. He didn't have friends before, it was too difficult. He could never go over to their houses, and he wouldn't even dream of having anyone to his place. He was quiet, he kept to himself so that he wouldn't have to explain the bruises - there was nothing to explain if no one noticed, right? And on the rare occasion that someone did, well, he was on the lacrosse team, it was an easy out. Now, though, everything that Dr. Jacobsen was saying made sense. Maybe Stiles really was trying to be his friend, and he didn't know what to do with that, but it made some part of him happy.

"Yeah," Isaac says finally, that smile still tugging at his lips. "I...I guess I did."

"I'm proud of you, Isaac," Dr. Jacobsen says, and for some reason, those words stick with him. His father never said those words, and he knows that Dr. Jacobsen isn't a father figure, he's a therapist, but for some reason, someone being proud of him makes Isaac's chest swell with something he doesn't quite recognize until he's already on his way out the door.

That feeling that he doesn't recognize, it's accomplishment, because for once, he did something well enough, and no one's telling him otherwise.

A/N Alright, so this was the first real chapter involving Stiles! I hoped that you guys liked their interaction - this is a very Isaac-centric story, so bringing Stiles in slowly seemed like the best course of action! Anyways, I'm sorry about slow posting, I had a really busy last week, and I have a very busy week this week, but I'm hoping that after that it will slow down! I'm also working on proofreading better, because I type about half of this on my phone, and there's just so much autocorrect happening, but I know I'm still missing stuff, so I hope it's not too unbearable! Anyways, thanks so much for reading! Love you guys!

OH! And I keep forgetting to mention - the title is from Bruce Springsteen's song of the same title. It's great, you should all go listen.