Hello my beauties. As promised the below chapter contains some lady bonding, and then some. It isn't as long as the previous one, but the next chapter will more than compensate for that.

Also I am posties early because I wanted to give you bbies a little treat before I bring the pain.

Love you mean it.

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A few days had passed, and Lydia had been too busy with school to do anymore digging, and was distracted from the slight guilty feeling forming in her stomach when she relieved a random text from Malia.

Malia: I'm coming over

Malia: Sorry. MAY I come over?

Lydia: Sure. Any specific reason?

Malia: Math

Lydia: Okay.

Malia: I'm bringing Kira.

()

Kira: Malia just more or less kidnapped me. Should I be worried?

Lydia: You're coming here. She says math, but I suspect something else.

Kira: Yeah, I don't see anything remotely resembling homework.

Lydia: Wonderful.

Kira: Here

Lydia met them at the front door, and it did seem that Malia had already given up the façade of needing math help.

She practically stormed into the Martin household, flinging herself at the kitchen. "Please tell me you have some decent junk food." Lydia sighed, trailing after her with Kira on her heels. She wordlessly opened the cabinet containing the Martin's mostly untouched stash of goodies, which Malia probably could have found on her own with that werecoyote nose. The two girls watched as Malia tore into a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, Kira finally piping up after a minute or two.

"Malia…?"

Her hazel eyes snapped up, wide and moderately confused. "Wha'?"

Lydia gestured to the bag of chocolatey goodness. "Care to tell us what's going on?"

Malia set the bag to the side, looking almost sheepish. "I'm kind of freaking out about my mom. The real one, not the one I killed." Lydia was fond of Malia's brutal honesty. The girl didn't often admit when something was bothering her, but when she did she was upfront about it. Which was something Lydia appreciated. "Peter said she's a werecoyote, like me. Or was, if she's even still alive. It's weird. She could be dead. I could have siblings. Like, a lot of them with her apparent track record. She could be dead and I could have siblings. Or she could be like, waiting for me in the desert. I could have a mom and like, siblings, waiting for me somewhere in the desert in Mexico and I'm just sitting here being completely useless trying to learn math and eating chocolate covered pretzels and-"

"Malia." Lydia placed her hands on the girls knees just as she snatched up the pretzel bag, demanding her full attention. Kira looked on with wide, mildly terrified eyes. "Your mother is not here because of her own choices. She gave you up for adoption before you could probably even open your eyes. You didn't do anything."

"I killed the only mother I've ever known, and the only sister I might ever have. Maybe she realized how psychotic Peter is and didn't have to deal with raising his devil spawn!"

"Then she was a bitch."

Kira's eyes grew wider, if that was even possible, and Malia's hand froze mid pretzel grab.

"If she gave you up because she didn't want to deal with you? Then she wasn't a mother at all. And she certainly didn't deserve to have such an amazing daughter."

Malia's smile was slow, and small, but genuine. The two girl's stayed like that for a moment, eyes locked, until Kira finally spoke.

"Or… Maybe she didn't want to give you up? Maybe she had to, to keep you safe. I mean, Talia took the memory of you and your mom from Peter. Maybe they were like, friends? And she asked Talia to? To.. Keep.. You.. Safe..?" She trailed off as the other girls turned to look at her, both still smiling.

"Thanks, Kira. Thank you, both of you." Tossing the pretzel bag on the counter next to her, she slid off. "Wow, do I feel better." She began to walk towards the front door, Lydia and Kira looking after her with confused expressions.

Lydia spoke first. "Uh, Malia?" The brunette spun around. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To Stiles'. I'm better now."

Lydia turned to Kira, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. "Kira, would you happen to know what day it is?"

"Friday…?"

"Right. And my parents are out-of-town this weekend." Kira finally caught on, and the two girls stepped forward. Each grabbed one of Malia's wrists, pulling her away from the door.

The werecoyote decided to hazard a guess. "Are we throwing a party?"

Lydia laughed. "Way better."

Kira grinned, and in that moment she looked gleefully foxlike. "Girls night."

()

Some time later, the three girls were set up in the theater room. They had a nest of blankets in front of the large, wall mounted flat screen, as well as a pile of snacks along with an assortment of nail polish and magazines. It wasn't a commonly known fact that Lydia Martin actually loved movie clichés. Jackson never took the hint, no matter how many times she had forced him to watch The Notebook. Before Allison, she'd never really had a close girl friend. So she had suffocated the brunette with shopping trips, movie nights, and mani/pedis. Allison never protested much. She had been too selfless for that.

Malia, however, had no problem complaining.

"I'm supposed to be at Stiles'."

"This movie is stupid."

"I don't even like pink!"

"Why does that girl think she's a bird?"

Kira sat, quietly painting her fingers a dark opal while Lydia painted Malia's toenails an alarming shade of glittery pink. The trio was a sight, each contrasting the other in appearance and mannerisms as much as they did in personality. Malia had an "I'm determined not to enjoy this" expression while she mindlessly dug into a bag of chips, eyes glued to the screen. She had finally given into Lydia's makeover request once the redhead had switched out The Notebook for The Avengers. She now paid no mind to Lydia, who sat cross-legged with a pensive expression as she worked her magic on Malia's previously somewhat knarly toenails. It startled both Malia and Kira when she suddenly sat up straight, exclaiming; "Finished!"

They turned their attention to Malia's now perfectly manicured toenails, glittering even in the light from the TV. The werecoyote stared at them for a hot minute before raising her eyes to Lydia's, a wide smile stretching her lips. "Make my fingers match."

Lydia immediately shifted her position, delighted at the discovery that Malia did, in fact, like pink.

Kira, however, could no longer stand the silence. "This is seriously the quietest girls' night I've ever been to. And I'm using the term girls' night loosely, because I'm pretty sure it's some sort of ritualistic requirement for us to like, talk about boys or girls or stupid teachers or our parents or something."

Lydia raised a brow, not sure if she'd ever heard Kira talk that much at once without encouragement. "Well I'd love to know more about your 900 year old mother, but I don't think that's exactly what you had in mind."

Kira glared, but there was humor glimmering in her eyes.

"I can talk about Stiles."

The Banshee and the Fox exchanged looks. Lydia had guessed Kira was privy to the fact that Stiles once had a huge thing for Lydia due to her relationship with Scott, and it was confirmed by the apologetic look in her soft features. Lydia really didn't mind though. Seeing Stiles happy with someone who cared about him so openly wasn't something she could rightfully be upset about. It still stung, sometimes. She figured it always would. Throughout high school her view of the Sheriff's son had changed multiple times. At first he was just competition, the only other student to be extraordinarily academically gifted. But then when she became more secretive about her intellectual prowess, she saw him as a slight annoyance. Then Scott came onto her radar after he became magically good at Lacrosse sophomore year, and Stiles became the hot guy's best friend. Then her entire world exploded, and slowly Stiles became the person explaining all the insanity, the person who looked out for her. Before she knew it, he was her anchor. He was funny, quick, a genius. She didn't know when she fell in love with him, or if maybe part of it was just transference. But it was the kind of love, she had discovered, that didn't necessarily need romance. Stiles would always be a part of her. And if he loved Malia, then she would too.

"Well, what's on your mind?" Kira raised a confused eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"Okay so the sex is like, amazing, right? But he doesn't always want to." Thankfully closed bottle of opal nail polish went flying as it's owner began choking on nothing in particular. Malia gave her a strange look, but Lydia just smiled. Virgins are adorable.

"Well, how many times do you usually try?"

"I dunno, like three?"

"Three times a week?!" Kira looked mildly disturbed, and Lydia wished she could brace her for she had a feeling they were both about to hear.

"No, three times a night." Kira paled. Lydia chuckled, reaching over to pat her knee.

"Malia, sweetheart. Despite his somewhat recent possession by an evil fox spirit, Stiles is human. A human who doesn't get a lot of sleep and spends far too much time chasing around supernatural creatures. You're probably exhausting him."

Completely ignoring the mortified look on Kira's face, the disappointed Malia continued informing them about the intimate little details of her relationship with Stiles. Lydia could only imagine the comical look on his face if he ever found out she'd shared so much with them, and she seriously considered telling him just for the blushing, the stammering. "And then he does this thing, where he like grazes his teeth against my-"

"Okay, seriously, I've learned more about the human anatomy in this conversation than I have in any health class, like, ever." Finally done with both of Malia's hands, Lydia placed her own, folded and very proper-like in her lap.

"So the wolf and the fox have yet to join naughty bits?"

Kira's cheeks became an alarmingly similar color to Malia's fingernails. "No. We've only been on one real date. And we got abducted. And… I… Haven't."

Malia was, of course, confused. "Haven't what?" Lydia flicked her affectionately on the arm. "Oooh. You haven't had sex." She looked to Lydia. "What's that called?"

Lydia smiled wider, for many reasons. On one hand, she found Kira's sweet embarrassment to be highly amusing. On the other, Malia had just turned to her to explain something human she didn't understand, what she was usually turning to Stiles for. "Virgin."

"I'm not… I mean, technically, but I've, you know. Done things."

Malia opened her mouth, probably to ask what kind of things, but Lydia spoke first. "I believe you. We don't have to talk about it." Kira was grateful. Malia, disappointed, but it was painfully obvious Kira was uncomfortable. Lydia had always figured Kira was sort of a, what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom kind of girl. Lydia respected that. She, however, was not. In most cases. She felt wrong talking about her recent dry spell seeing as it was caused by the death of her latest not-boyfriend, Aiden. However, she was a young woman. A young woman with needs. Now that everything had calmed down, and her mind was freed from constantly working on the latest mystery, it had begun to wonder back to her needs. Wants. What have you. Due to her friend's obvious discomfort however, she would refrain on venting her troubles until she and Malia had one on one time.

The movie came to an end, resulting in a very upset Malia. She insisted they put the next one in, only to cry out in protest when they explained there wasn't a second one. Yet. However they managed to appease her by informing her of the fact that a lot of the characters had their own movies, and Lydia slipped in the first Captain America. Malia groaned over his butt after he took the serum until she eventually dozed off. Twitching and whimpering occasionally, her dozing gradually became a deep sleep.

"Do you think it's weird Scott and I haven't really.. Ya know?"

Lydia gave her a classic, don't be stupid look. "Of course not, Kira."

"Do you think it's weird that I've never.."

"Kira. No. You can wait as long as you need to, okay? And Scott definitely won't care. He'll wait as long as you need him to."

"You think so?"

"I know so. He's a good one."

Kira glanced to the snoring coyote. "Do you think she knows about you and Stiles?"

"No. But there's not really anything to know. If he hasn't told her it's probably because he doesn't think she'd understand. I don't understand it, sometimes. We just have this.. Connection. It could have gone either way. It almost.. I think we might have ended up together. But just everything.. It was too much. Too much for either of us to risk. And we didn't need to. What we are is enough."

Kira gave one of her closed mouth smiles. "What you guys have is amazing. I've never seen anything like it."

Lydia nodded, holding a small smile of her own. "I don't know what I'd have done without him through everything. I really.. I didn't know what I was going to do if we couldn't.. If the Nogitsune.." Kira wrapped her delicate hands around Lydia's pale ones.

"But he's fine. The Nogitsune is gone. He's fine. You're fine.." The dead hung in the air after her silence. They always lingered in the silences between conversations, and the silences at night when Lydia lied in her bed. Sometimes she could even hear their whispers.

"Yeah. We're all fine."

()

The next morning Lydia woke up as the awkward middle spoon, Malia's lanky arms wrapped tight around her middle. She was mildly confused, blinking several times at Kira's dark hair before drifting back off to sleep for she didn't know how long. When she awoke again, her nose was greeted by the smell of bacon instead of peach shampoo, and found that she was the only one still remaining in their little nest. The door to the theater room was open, and she shuffled out and made her way to the kitchen.

Her two friends were working side by side, dodging flying bullets of bacon grease as they flew from the frying pan. The counters were a mess, covered in wrappers and egg shells and god knows what else. They had their hair in matching messy buns, and had apparently raided Lydia's dresser drawers for pajama shorts and t-shirts. She didn't realize until then how much she had missed having friends who got into your stuff without asking. Sitting on the stools pulled up to the island, were an amused Scott and Stiles, only one of whom noticed her arrival thanks to his extra sensory hearing.

"Hey, Lyds."

"Good morning."

Stiles turned to look at her, beaming. She walked over and sat next to him, leaning sleepily into his arm. "Uh, tired?" She nodded. For once Lydia didn't worry that she probably looked a fright, or was still wearing last nights clothes, now crumpled and ridiculously wrinkly. As she inhaled the scents of breakfast and Stiles' detergent, watching the two girls makes breakfast, she briefly wished she could wake up to that every morning.

"So, when did you guys get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago." Now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered jolting awake to the sound of a door slamming.

Scott leaned on the counter, looking around his best friend to talk to her. "Stiles was worried something was going on."

"Oh he should have been worried," she retorted. "We talked about you guys all night long."

Stiles turned pink. "Seriously?"

Malia snorted. "Not all night."

He looked like he wanted to know more, but he was silenced but the plate of food Kira slid in front of him. Her timing was perfect, and Lydia doubted it was a coincidence, especially when she caught a hint of a smirk. "Do you guys have practice?"

Kira answered. "Already did." Now that Lydia took a second look, she realized the pajamas Kira was wearing weren't hers, and her hair was a little wet. She had slept through Kira leaving, and coming back, which was strange.

"Where's Liam?"

"Doing homework or something."

"What time is it?"

"A little after eleven." Stiles gave her a worried look. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just groggy. I haven't slept this late, or long in.. What feels like forever." Sliding off of the stool, she moved to make coffee. The Keurig was her savior in machine form, because nobody had time for that making an entire pot at once business. She offered some to the others, and they each lined up to pick something from the wide variety of coffee pods. At some point Kira had put on music, and as an upbeat song Lydia didn't recognize came on Scott suddenly spun her around, sending her red locks into a flurry. It caught her off guard, and a surprised laugh burst from her lips. In turn she attempted to spin Malia, which was rather difficult as she was taller and became very confused by the whole thing. This only caused Lydia to laugh harder. Soon they all were, spinning each other and dancing horribly around Lydia's kitchen. Bright sunlight shone off the pale stone, and even though it was nearing winter the kitchen was toasty from having the stove on. They kept on like that for some time, goofing off and laughing and forgetting about everything that had happened over the past few months. For a morning they weren't broken. They weren't werewolves or banshees or kitsunes or coyotes or detectives, they were just kids having fun on a Saturday morning. For a few hours Lydia let herself believe that maybe it was all finally over. Sure, Scott was still a werewolf. She was still a Banshee. Malia still didn't know who her mother was and Kira was just finding out. But maybe it didn't have to hurt anymore. Maybe they could finish school without anyone else dying and she could go to college and never, even scream for someone again. Maybe they could all just live happy, semi-normal lives.

She was wrong.

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*maniacal cackling* I really do love you guys.