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It's been ten years.
It's been ten years and Kira feels impossibly older, but only a little wiser. It's been ten years, and she knows that she does not want to drive any further.
The sign welcoming her to Beacon Hills is new. It's green, carved out of wood, she thinks, and has pale yellow lettering. Painted pine trees curl around all the lettering, and they've carved the "o" in "welcome" to be a solid circle. It looks like a full moon. She wonders who carved the sign, and if they know.
Probably. It's Beacon Hills.
She sighs and wonders if anyone will get upset with her for idling in the middle of the road. She isn't pulled over onto the shoulder, certain that if she does, she will end up turning around and driving away. But she can't do that to Scott.
Scott.
They've kept in contact to some degree, enough that she knows what horrors he's battled in the years she's been gone, that she knows he finally escaped to go to college for a few years and came back a veterinarian, and that, of all of them, he is still true. She knows that he and Malia dated for a few years, but parted amicably, and are still friends. Malia is also true, and always will be. She's Scott's second-in-command now, and Kira thinks it suits her.
She adjusts her glasses (apparently even kitsune can read too much) and lifts her foot from the brake pedal.
She can do this. For Scott and Malia, she can do this.
Scott isn't sure calling Kira in was the best move. Not that he has any sort of doubt about how much she can help the situation, it's just—he's nervous. She was the second great love of his life, and even if he's loved and been loved since then, he's not sure he's read to find out how he'll feel about her now, when she lives so far away and doesn't want to return to this hellhole of a town. He doesn't blame her. He's surprised she's coming at all.
Malia touches his shoulder, grounding him. "Stop worrying," she says.
He wonders if she's a mind reader, or if he's just that transparent. He smiles at her wanly. "What if she's still perfect?"
She rolls her eyes at him and sqeezes his shoulder. "She will be. She's Kira."
Which, he supposes, is fair.
He takes a deep breath and counts as he exhales. One, two, three, four, and then Kira is pulling up to his house in a green Camry that might be a rental. She steps out of the car and for a second he can't breathe because she looks even more beautiful now at 27 than he remembers her looking at 17, and she's wearing glasses that frame her face perfectly, and Scott apparently has a thing for glasses—oh, God. Malia was right. She's still perfect, and is always going to be perfect.
She blinks up at the two of them, standing on Scott's porch, and, God, he's going to pass out if he doesn't get a fucking grip—
She stares at him for what seems like forever, and then smiles, closes the car door, and runs across the lawn until she reaches him and can pull him into a hug.
He inhales a sharp breath—finally—and catches all of her scent. It's new and old all at the same time. He smiles, suddenly relieved, just to be holding her, to be held by her. "Kira," he says.
"Hi," she whispers, and squeezes him tighter.