Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s a nice day out.

That’s the first thing Kira notices when she steps off the prison van back in Beacon Hills.

It seems so wrong, that the sun is shining in the sky when they’d just been through hell. 

Stiles claps her on the shoulder like he knows what she’s thinking. “And the world keeps turning. With thunderous applause!” 

Kira squints at him. “Huh?”

“It’s a Star Wars thing,” Stiles gestures with his hands. “...You know what? Never mind.”

The Sheriff is waiting and Stiles goes to greet him, dragging Malia along too.

Kira sneaks a glance at Scott—they haven’t gotten a chance to speak properly yet—but someone beats her to it.

Lydia throws her arms around Scott. “Oh, thank god. I thought you went and died on me. Are you okay?”

“Of course,” Scott assures her.

He winces slightly as he pulls away from the hug. 

Kira frowns.

The two of them start talking in low tones, Scott giving Lydia a stilted explanation of what happened in Mexico.

It was fine, Kira told herself. There’d be plenty of time later. 

She was sure that Scott probably had a lot of people to talk to, now that everything was over. Besides, Liam told them that the Berserkers had kept Lydia at the school because she’d had a premonition about Scott.

Kira shudders, imagining Scott’s name in that Banshee scream, just like Allison’s.

No wonder Lydia was shaken. 

Her mom and dad are hovering uncertainly behind the rest of the gaggle, but when they see Kira their faces light up.

“Kira!” Noshiko cries out.

She’s swept up into their arms. 

Her mom lets her go as quickly as she’d embraced her, scanning her body. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

“Give her a moment to breathe,” her dad chides softly.

Kira gives them both a tired smile. “I’m okay, I promise.”

She can barely look at her mother without being back in that pit, swimming in bones and darkness.

It’s alright to cry, she had said. It’s no measure of your strength.

“What is it?” Noshiko frowns.

Kira looks back at the pack. Stiles and Malia have disappeared and Scott is now with Melissa. Lydia hovers next to Mason and Liam.

Scott looks back, searching. When his eyes land on Kira, he grimaces apologetically. 

It’s okay, Kira mouths. Later.

He gives her a relieved smile.

It’s strained.

“Kira?” Noshiko’s eyes are narrowed. 

”Come on,” her dad says. “Let her talk to her friends first.”

Her mom looks like she wants to argue, but eventually she sighs. “Alright. We’ll be waiting in the car.”

As soon as they go, Lydia rushes up to Kira. “Oh my god, were you really stabbed? Are you okay?”

She doesn’t mention that Scott was the one who stabbed her.

“I’m okay,” Kira says. Again. 

Lydia’s eyes rove over Kira, lingering over her abdomen, and stop on her cheek. 

“You have a bit of…” Lydia gently brushes soot off of Kira’s face, hesitating. “You sure you’re not still hurt?”

Kira shakes her head. “All healed.”

“Well, that’s new,” Lydia says, but thankfully, she doesn’t ask questions. 

“What about you?” 

“Oh, never been better!” Lydia says breathily with a sardonic huff of laughter. 

She pushes her sweaty hair back from her face, glancing at Kira’s stomach again. 

Kira frowns. “What is it?”

“What?” Lydia startles. “Nothing.” 

Her eyes keep flicking down.

Kira lifts up her shirt and shows Lydia the unmarred skin. “See?”

“Yeah. I know.” 

Kira doesn’t think she does. 

Her fingers are skating over the hem of her skirt. Kira has never seen Lydia so anxious.

Allison had been stabbed through the gut too.

Kira hugs Lydia before she can protest. 

“Here we go.” Lydia rolls her eyes, but her arms come around Kira’s waist all the same. 

“I’m supernatural,” Kira reminds her.

Lydia sighs, pulling back, voice going softer. “You’ll tell me what happened?”

“Scott didn’t say?”

“Yeah, but—you know how he is. Downplaying everything.”

Right.

“Of course I will,” she says. 

“After a hot shower and a good night’s sleep,” Lydia tries to joke. Her eyes drift past Kira. “Do you think he’s gonna be okay?”

She turns to see who Lydia’s talking about. 

Mason is leaning against the van by himself, looking a lot less younger than he did yesterday. 

Kira’s eyes dart to Scott unconsciously.

“I really don’t know,” she frowns.

Lydia chews at her lip.

“I’m sure he will be,” Kira says, looking back to Mason. “After a hot shower and a good night's sleep, maybe.”

Just like she was hoping, it draws a laugh out of Lydia. Some of the worry on her face eases away. Good. At least one small thing she could do.

After Lydia goes to check on Mason, Kira chances one last glance at Scott. He’s with Liam now, heads close together, Liam’s eyes teary but lips tugging into a reluctant, wobbly smile. When Scott looks up, his eyes find hers instantly, like he was waiting for her to look.

Kira’s chest tugs down, longing to close the space between them.

She doesn’t want to interrupt, though. 

Before she can come to a decision, Melissa is there, pressing something into Scott’s hands and brushing hair out of his face, and Stiles follows her.

Kira takes a step back. 

It was okay. Scott had lots to do, lots to think about. Of course everyone was surrounding him, needing to talk, drawn to him. Who wouldn’t be? It was Scott.

Besides, her parents were waiting. 

It’s only when she gets to the car and sinks into the backseat that she realizes how tired she really is. Her eyes start to droop with the rocking of the car as they ride in silence. 

Her mom watches her through the mirror. “Sleepy?”

“Nope,” Kira yawns.

Ken frowns. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay.”

He hesitates. “It’s okay if you’re not okay. I just want you to know that.”

Kira is exhausted. “Thanks, Dad.”

She wakes up in her room hours later, sky dipping into darkness outside. She didn’t remember falling asleep, or getting home, but her dad must have carried her up to her bed.

Just like he used to do when they were younger. 

She may not remember drifting off, but she did remember her dream. 

Brown eyes. Orange sand. Two black rings. Swirling, around and around. Those three gaping holes: an abyss staring back at her. Flesh melting away, into a sea of bones that drowned her. 

Her phone is full of notifications. 

A “You hungry?” from Stiles, followed by a picture of Malia with a slice of pizza in her hand and tomato sauce on her nose, a missed call from Lydia, hundreds of unanswered texts and calls from her parents after they’d realised she was gone.

Kira clicks on the unread messages from Scott. 

Hey, where’d you go? Did you head home? 

I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk properly 

Ok so your dad told me you’re asleep. Sweet dreams <3 

Call me when you can!! :)

She stares at the exclamation marks and the smiley face, so at odds with how bruised and exhausted Scott had looked.

The niggling in her gut returns. 

Kira’s fingers hover over the call button, but in the end she puts her shoes and leather jacket back on.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

Kira jumps. “Mom! When did you even come in? And what happened to knocking, by the way?”

“My daughter was kidnapped with her werewolf boyfriend,” Noshiko scowls. “Forgive me for being a little paranoid. So? Where are you sneaking off to?”

“Nowhere!”

Her mom presses her lips together. “Kira.” 

“Okay,” Kira sighs. “Fine. I was maybe going to see Scott.”

“No one listens to me. We should have moved back to New York when we had the chance.” Noshiko presses her lips together tightly. “I told you things would get out of hand. For both of you.”

“Yeah, I remember.” She fidgets anxiously with the hem of her coat, voice quiet. “Foxes and wolves don’t mix well.”

Noshiko’s eyes narrow. “What’s that?”

Kira follows her gaze to the obsidian peeking out of her coat.

“Nothing,” she says, trying to shove it back into her pocket, but she’s too late. Noshiko snatches it out of her hands.

“What is this?”  

“Mom, stop!”

Kira yanks it away, rougher than she meant to. Noshiko stumbles back a step. 

A spark of blue electricity crackles between them.

She freezes. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Kira…” Her mom’s voice sharpens. “Your eyes.” 

“What?” Kira whirls around to look in the mirror.

Her irises burn orange. 

She drops the obsidian like it’s fire, iron hot. 

When it leaves her hands, her eyes settle back into brown.

Her mother stares at the shard where it lays on her flowery duvet cover.

“Do you even realise what’s happened?” she whispers, looking awed.

“No,” Kira bites out, suddenly furious. “Because you talk in riddles all the time!”

She snatches up her phone and keys.

“Wait!” her mother cries, reaching for her, but Kira brushes past her.

She grips the obsidian in her knuckles. “I don’t care if you approve or not.”

“This is about more than just the wolf!” Noshiko calls after her.

Kira doesn’t stick around to listen. 

────────

When she gets to the McCall’s, she can see Melissa in the downstairs window.

The light in Scott’s room is on. Kira snakes up the drainpipe, onto the lattice, and looks through the glass. 

Scott is sitting on the end of his bed, still in the same black vest, staring blankly at the wall. 

He shows no indication that he’s heard her, no Alpha-like senses. No wolf senses at all.

Kira’s gut churns.

She opens the window noisily.

“Hey,” she says, as cheery as she can manage as she clambers through. 

Scott only turns at the sound of her voice. His eyes widen at the sight of her. 

“Kira?” he blinks. Then, the startledness seeps away and he gives her a small smile. “How did you sleep?”

“Good,” she says, perching next to him on the bed.

“Sweet dreams?” Scott’s eyes are still tired, but his lips quirk upwards a little.

Kira hesitates. 

Orange and brown swirl, chasing each other’s tails.

The fox and the wolf.

Perhaps there was some truth to what her mother said after all.

Scott’s smile fades. “Hey, are you okay?”

She takes a deep breath. “I just… I wanted to see you.”

Relief flickers on his face. “I wanted to see you too. I’m sorry about earlier.”

Kira isn’t sure exactly which earlier he’s referring to. 

“Me too. I didn’t… I would have—” Kira pauses. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Scott frowns. “You could have. I wouldn’t have minded.”

“I guess. It’s just… I know you had things to do, conversations to have— important conversations, with important people.”

Scott frowns harder. “You’re important, Kira. You’re important to me, alright?"

“...Alright.”

Kira pauses, taking him in. 

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You have a bit of…” Kira reaches up and brushes soot off his face.

“Oh.” Scott flinches at the touch, so infinitesimally that she might not have noticed if she hadn’t been paying attention. “Thanks.”

She glances at him sideways. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

She suddenly wishes she could hear heartbeats too.

“I’ve heard that word way too many times today.”

Scott gives a soft huff of something that could almost be laughter. “Me too.” 

Kira turns to face him, bringing her knees up to the soft duvet so she sits cross legged. “I’m serious, Scott. You can be honest with me.”

Scott frowns. “I know.”

He mirrors her position so they can really look at each other, foreheads inches away.

Kira scuffles forwards so their knees brush. “What’s wrong?” 

“What do you mean?”

“You aren’t healing. I saw you wince.”

Scott goes still. He looks away, brows drawing together in surprise. “It’s just… taking a little longer, I think.”

“Has that happened before?” Kira asks doubtfully.

“Just once…” Scott’s voice drifts off, and he doesn’t finish the thought.

Kira waits him out.

Eventually, he manages to meet her eyes again. “I couldn’t sleep, you know?” He shakes his head. “Sorry, it’s stupid. I’m not trying to put my problems on you.”

“It’s not stupid,” Kira says without hesitation. “Your problems are my problems, Scott.”

His face crumples. “How can you say that? How can you say that when I—”

He cuts himself off, eyes glinting. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says firmly. “You can’t think that.”

He recoils. “Of course I do. I stabbed you, Kira. You were on the floor backing away from me and I stabbed you. I beat you bloody and I didn’t stop. I didn’t even think about stopping.”

“Because of her. Not because you wanted to hurt me.”

Scott ignores her. “I don’t think think we should be together anymore.”

Her heart drops into her gut. 

“You don’t mean that,” she chokes out.

“I think that you’d be better off without me.” Scott’s eyes are cloudy. “I’m not… safe.”

“And I am?” Kira scoffs. 

“It’s not the same.”

“Are wolves and kitsunes really so different?”

He sighs. “No.”

“Then why?”

“Because you’re not a monster like me!”

Scott shudders with his outburst. 

“I’m sorry,” he says instantly. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”

Kira gapes. “You can’t possibly believe that. Scott, you’re the least monstrous person I’ve ever met.”

He refuses to meet her eyes.

The pit widens. She scrambles forwards, reaching up to touch his face.

“Scott?”

She strokes his cheek. 

“Yeah?” he hums, eyes fluttering closed. 

“Can I see?”

For a moment, he tenses up. But then all the fight drains out of him.

“Scott?” she coaxes.

He opens them, and his irises are burning red.

She thinks maybe he needs to hear it one more time.

“You’re not a monster,” Kira says softly. 

His eyes settle back into brown. 

Scott exhales. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kira whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”  

He sinks forwards, and her arms come up. They hold each other, silent except for the thud thud thud of their hearts where their ribcages press together. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asks eventually. 

Scott clams up. Kira feels his body go stiff.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she adds quickly.

“It’s not that I don’t—” Scott pulls back, rubs at his eyes. “I don’t know if I can.”

He says it so quietly, so ashamed, that Kira’s throat aches. 

“Then don’t,” she says softly. “Tell me something else instead.”

“Like what?” 

“Whatever you want.”

“Suddenly I can’t remember anything interesting,” Scott says, screwing up his face. 

Kira laughs softly. 

“What about…” She flounders for something to cheer him up. “What’s the most legendary hiding place you ever found during Hide and Seek?”

Scott flops down so his head is in her lap and closes his eyes. 

“Hmm,” he hums. “Now, that’s a question. Stiles used to find us all sorts of weird places back when we were into skateboarding. There was this underground lair, a water treatment plant that got abandoned or something. It was in all these tunnels. I remember I hid in a creepy tank, and Stiles went by me four times before he gave up. It took me over an hour but I won.”

“Weren’t you scared? How old were you?”

“Eight,” Scott laughs. “I was scared shitless, but I was pretending not to be for Theo’s sake.”

“Theo?”

“He was another kid we used to hang out with. We were the only two in our grade with asthma.”

“Huh.” It was odd to think of Scott-and-Stiles as anything but just Scott-and-Stiles. Kira couldn’t imagine them with a third wheel. “But not anymore?”

“He moved away the year after.”

“Oh. Okay, next question then.”

“Not so fast,” Scott protests. “It’s your turn.”

They go on like that, alternating with asking stupid questions until Scott starts to yawn.

She frowns. “You must be exhausted.”

“I couldn’t fall asleep,” Scott reminds her.

“Well, my mum always says you sleep better on a full stomach.”

Kira holds up the plastic bag she’d tucked into her inside pocket.

Scott grins. “No way.”

“I brought sushi!” Kira waves it around, offering him the first one. “Now, we eat, and then we sleep.”

Scott takes a bite, then pauses. “You never told me whether or not you slept well.”

“Oh, super great. Amazing. I was out like a light. Slept like a log. The whole nine yards.”

He peers at her. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“No,” she says quickly. “Just a bad dream.”

His lips quirk again. “Isn’t that exactly what a nightmare is?”

“Not to me,” Kira frowns. 

“Was it about La Iglesia? What I did to you?”

“No,” she rushes to say. “You’ve never scared me, Scott.”

“I thought we were being honest,” Scott says. “Kira, you—come on. You think I can’t tell you’re not okay?”

“The only one I was scared of was Kate,” Kira says honestly.

Scott pauses. “Was it her you dreamt about, then?”

“Not really.” Kira sighs, searching for the right way to describe the floating abstractness of her dream. “Just—ugh. It sounds so weird but… Do you consider your eyes to be red? Or brown?” 

Scott looks surprised. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve never really thought about it that way before.”

“How do you think of it then?”

He’s silent for a while, sucking on his lip.

Eventually he says, “The wolf, and the boy.”

Kira tilts her head. “Huh.”

“So I guess that makes you the fox and the girl.”

And us the fox and the wolf, Kira doesn’t say.

The obsidian burns in her pocket.

────────

“I still don’t get how me throwing stuff at you counts as practice,” Malia says. 

Kira swings her lacrosse stick in a sweeping arc, and fails to catch the ball yet again. 

“It’s about reflexes,” she huffs. “Practice makes perfect.”

Malia heaves another ball at her. “When will those be your reflexes?”

She gestures down the field at where Liam is doing showy tricks with his friends, some of which include flips.

“I don’t think I ever could,” Kira says, wide eyed. 

Malia shrugs. “The fox, maybe.”

There it was again. Kira sighs.

Malia frowns at her. “What’s up with you?”

Kira considers. She had the habit of overthinking herself into a hole. Sometimes she just needed a straight answer, and no one gave a straight answer like Malia.

“Do you ever feel like… I don’t know. Like you and Stiles are doomed?”

“Of course not,” Malia snorts.

“Really? Not ever?” Kira asks glumly. She can’t help but be disappointed at the answer. 

Malia stares at her for a moment, and then she laughs. “Kira, you and Scott aren’t doomed, okay? Why would you even think that?”

“It’s just this thing my mom said once,” Kira mumbles to the ground, pink cheeked. “In all the myths, wolves and foxes don’t get on well.”

Malia screws up her nose. “Who cares what a bunch of old stories say?”

“Yeah…” Kira says slowly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“You still smell anxious.”

“I’m worried about Scott,” she admits. “I went over last night and he didn’t seem like himself. He tried to break up with me, too.”

“He what?” Malia blinks. “You’re right, that doesn’t sound like him at all.”

Kira slumps, defeated. 

Malia softens. “Look, crazy stuff happened. He literally got turned into a berserker by that crazy woman. That’s bound to mess someone up for a while.” She pauses. “Stiles is worried about him too.”

“Well, what did he say?” 

Stiles knew Scott best, after all. If anyone could help, it was Stiles. 

“Not much,” Malia says. “But he didn’t need to.”

Kira sighs, and drops the ball for the hundredth time.

“Is it really that bad?” Malia asks.

“Kind of? I don’t really know. He seemed a little better by the time we were done hanging out, but that might just be because I was distracting him with silly questions. I don’t know how much of that was real and how much was for my benefit, y’know?” Kira frowns. “I wish he knew that he doesn’t have to be this strong responsible Alpha all the time. I wish he let himself be taken care of more. I wish he realised he can lean on me.” 

“So just tell him that,” Malia says like it’s the simplest thing ever.

Kira blinks, pausing her swishing of the stick. 

Wait. She could do that?

“But what if—”

“Kira.” Malia cuts her off, sounding exasperated. “Stop overthinking, and just do it.”

She throws the ball again, and Kira catches it perfectly in the back of her net.

────────

“Where is it?” 

Kira storms downstairs, blazing with indignation that melts away the good mood that Malia had put her in just a few hours ago.

Her parents look at her over their yunomi, tea still steaming clouds over the pale green mosaic.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” her mother says evenly. 

“You know what I’m talking about,” Kira hisses. “The obsidian. You went into my jacket and took it.”

“Yes.” Noshiko is still infuriatingly calm. 

It only makes Kira angrier.

She grits her teeth. “Why? It’s not yours to take.”

Her mother gets up and comes around the table. “It’s not safe, Kira. You know that.”

“No, I don’t! I don’t know what you’re talking about. You always keep me in the dark. You talk in circles. You never tell me what you really mean, and I’m sick of it! I’m sick of you not trusting me.”

“I do trust you!” Noshiko says. “You’re my daughter. Of course I trust you.” 

“But you always have to interfere!”

“Kira,” her dad interjects. “Let’s all take a moment. Your mother doesn’t mean to upset you, or make you feel untrustworthy. We only want to protect you.”

Kira breathes, shame seeping in. “I know. I’m sorry for yelling. But I have a right to know.”

Noshiko sighs. “You saw the way it sparked yesterday. You can’t control it.”

“And what is it?”

Her parents exchange an unsubtle look, but remain silent.

Kira looks between them in disbelief. “Seriously? You just said you trusted me!”

“I do,” Noshiko folds her arms. “But trust doesn’t mean reckless endangerment.”

“When have I ever been reckless?”

“When you got involved with the wolf—”

“He has a name.”

“Fine. When you got involved with Scott McCall and his pack.”

Kira scoffs. “Of course. You still haven’t let that go, even though you know they’re good people! They care about others, and they want to help—”

“I know,” Noshiko snaps. “I know, and it’s admirable. But what I care about is you, and keeping you safe!”

“What does that have to do with a random rock?”

“It’s not just a random rock.”

“So what is it, then?”

Noshiko presses her lips together.

“Fine!” Kira cries. “You don’t want me involved? I won’t get involved.”

She snatches her mug off the table and storms back upstairs. 

Barely half an hour later, there’s a soft knock on her door.

Kira closes her eyes. “Go away, Dad.”

Ken comes in and sits at the bottom of her bed. “You forgot your dinner.”

“I had tea.”

“Hardly adequate.”

He sets down a plate on her bedside table.

Kira can feel him looking at her, even with her eyes closed. 

“It’s your favourite,” he tries.

“Not hungry.”

Her traitorous stomach decides to grumble then, loud as day.

“I’ll leave if you want. Please, just try to eat.”

Kira sits up as he goes. “Wait.”

Ken hovers at the door, looking painfully hopeful. “Yes?”

“Did Mom tell you? About the rock, about yesterday?”

He hesitates.

“Oh, come on. I’m not a child anymore.”

With a heaving sigh he sits back down on the end of her bed. “From what I understand, your powers are evolving.”

Kira thinks about how she’d sparked her mom by accident. “Evolving how?”

“I’m not sure.”

She gives him an unimpressed look. 

”No, really, I’m not. Your mother was tight lipped with me too,” Ken frowns. “All she would really say was that I had to help her with something, and that we had to act fast.”

“So the usual riddles,” Kira grumbles. “Should we invest in a communication skills workshop?”

“Columbia does have a rather excellent one,” her father says mournfully.

Kira’s lips twitch despite herself. 

She sighs. 

“Look, I get it, okay? She’s worried. I would be too. But she doesn’t know Scott like I do, or the rest of them.”

“It’s not that she dislikes him. You know that. But Scott, this town: it comes with a certain level of danger.”

I can be dangerous too, Kira thinks stubbornly.

“It’s not just Beacon Hills though,” she says. “I’m a kitsune. I was born into this. It would have happened eventually.”

“True.” Ken sighs, and it’s so weary that she momentarily forgets he isn’t as old as her mother. “For the record, you have my approval.”

She blinks. “I do?”

“Not that you need it, of course. But Scott is a wonderful young man.”

Kira relaxes at the use of man rather than wolf. “Thanks, Dad.”

He shifts around. “As for your mom, I know she can be difficult sometimes. Only because she cares so much. She knows what it’s like to be like you, discovering your abilities. Back then, she had a rough time of it.”

“Really?” It was bizarre to imagine. “Why?” 

“The struggle between the fox and the human is a constant one. When you have nine centuries of experience, you learn how to navigate that. But when it’s new… When she woke her kitsune all those years ago, your mother struggled with keeping her powers under control. She hurt people. She went down dark paths. I know she doesn’t make it easy, but it’s only ever because she doesn’t want the same to happen to you.”

“What kind of dark paths?”

Ken looks away. “I’ve already said too much…” 

But Kira knows.

It was a hard thing, to realise your mother was a murderer. Harder still to realise you could be too.

────────

This time, it’s Scott who sneaks out. 

“We could go for a drive?” Kira suggests. “It’s too hot out anyway, and my dad’s car has AC.”

Scott agrees easily, like he always does when she suggests something. 

“You pick the music though,” she tells him. 

One thing she likes about Beacon Hills is getting to drive. She never got to in New York, but she likes the feeling of being behind the wheel.

Scott likes it when she drives too. 

Kira thinks he probably needs a break from being the one behind the wheel. 

They’d only managed to get away in the evening, so the sky was ablaze with fuschia pinks and coral oranges. Kira notes approvingly that the dark circles under his eyes were fading, albeit slowly. She’d slept at his last night, both because things were still awkward at home and because Scott slept better when she was around. 

Stiles had been with him all day. Kira thinks that’s probably why Scott seemed in better spirits.

“You’re staring.” There’s a smile in his voice.

Kira looks away quickly, flushing red. “Sorry.”

He smiles more. “No, I like it.”

“Stop.” 

She’s smiling now, too.

Scott looks over at her. “You wanna go to the river?”

It’s their favourite spot, out on the edge of town, a shallow river tucked away in a deep green thicket of trees loaded with stepping stones big enough to sit on. Kira liked practicing balance on them, like she used to with her mom when she was younger, and Scott liked following along with her. 

“We don’t have to.”

“Are you sure?” Scott teases. “We could be missing out on a really great sunset.”

Kira taps her fingers nervously. “Is it—Are you… up for it?”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to, Scott. If you’re tired, or if you’d rather—”

“I want to.” Scott is firm. “Hey, think about the view.”

Kira wavers. “I suppose it is really nice out…” 

“You know you want to,” he sing songs.

“Alright, alright.” Kira laughs as she swerves into the next lane and signals the turn. 

They zoom by the Tate house, bickering light heartedly whether that flash of movement out front was coyote Malia or just a stray cat, over Roosevelt Bridge, past the clinic and the school and the lookout point. 

Scott ties Kira’s hair up for her before he rolls the windows all the way down, so he can lean out of the window and shout gleefully into the wind. 

He liked doing stuff like that when there was no one else around to see it. 

Kira can’t help but laugh along too, pressing down faster on the accelerator just to keep that look on his face. She hasn’t seen him smile so wide in far too long. It’s infectious. 

“Don’t lean so far!”

“I’ll live,” Scott says carelessly. 

The shorter hairs at the front blow out of her ponytail and whip around. Kira slows down as they near, pushing them out of her face. Her eyes are watery but in this moment, she doesn’t even care. 

She’s barely parked before Scott’s bounding out of the car and over her side to open the door, snatching her up in his arms. “That was awesome.”

“It was,” Kira agrees breathlessly, not exactly sure how to feel about this sudden shift when he’d been so wrecked just the day before yesterday. But then again, even if it was rare, Scott could get so revved up sometimes. 

They wind through the trees to get to the stream, where the soft bubbly trickle of water and the chirping of sparrows drowns out everything else. 

“Wow,” Kira whispers, staring at the horizon where the rich brown of the tree trunks flared into the orange fire of the setting sun. “You were right. This is not a sight to miss.”

She snaps a few shots on her phone for Lydia—who secretly appreciated that sort of thing—and splashes through the shallows to find her favourite rock, ignoring her wet feet. California was hot in the evenings, something she still wasn’t used to even after half a year.

Scott follows her, leaping from stone to stone effortlessly. “Kinda perfect for your scrapbook, right?”

They slip off their shoes and Kira leads them through a few of the familiar stretches her mom showed her. 

Focus on your breathing as you move, she used to tell Kira.

Kira inhales as she stretches towards her toes, holds, and exhales as she comes back up. 

After a few more rounds of movements, Scott quirks a brow at her. 

“What’s that thing you’re doing?”

“What? Nothing,” she blurts quickly.

“No, I like it. It’s relaxing. We never did that before, did we? I think it improves the experience.”

“We?”

“Well, I noticed you doing it and synced our breathing.”

“Oh.” Kira goes red. “I didn’t realise you were paying attention to that.”

Scott shrugs. “Just, you know, checking in.”

“Thanks,” Kira says faintly. Her stomach is rather fluttery all of a sudden.

Scott takes a deep breath, the air sickly sweet with the fragrance of pine and evergreen. “Wanna sit for a bit?”

She nods, and they settle on her rock. It’s still hot to the touch from the sun all day. Kira lays back, closes her eyes, and lets the heat seep through her skin to her bones.

Scott copies her. “Wow, I needed this. I feel so much lighter now.”

“That’s good,” Kira hums, looking over at the way the warm light spills over his skin like honey and casts it bronze. His long eyelashes are dark against his lids. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

“As you like to tell me.”

“As you like to forget,” Kira counters.

“Okay, okay. This is my grand opening, see? Sunsets and yoga and lying in a river. It’s the most self-care you can get.”

“We’re gonna do this once a week,” she insists. “Even if I have to drag you by the hand.”

“But I like it when you hold my hand.”

Kira groans. “Scott.”

He grins. “Sorry. You’re cute when you get all protective.”

“Like you ever let me.”

“Hey!”

“I’m serious. You’ve saved my life more times than I can count.”

“We’re not keeping score,” Scott says. “It’s not a competition."

Kira sighs. “I know, I just… I want to protect you too, okay? I want you to let me.”

Scott’s silent for a bit.

“Yeah, okay,” he says eventually. “Yeah, I can do that. If it’s important to you.”

They go back to their Sunday sunset bathing after that, like it’s settled, but Kira knows how stubborn he can be.

She thinks about the times she’d gone against Kincaid, the Oni, the Berserkers. How easily her katana had failed her, how quickly she’d been knocked to the ground. She was improving, day by day, but it wasn’t good enough. 

Kira looks over at Scott’s dozing form one last time, lit aglow in gold, and vows that she’ll find a way to protect him properly, against any and all odds.

────────

When she gets back home, her mom is waiting up for her on the front steps of the porch, her figure drenched in the lamplight creeping through the half-open door.

“Dad said I could use the car,” Kira says immediately, nervousness creeping into her voice.

“That’s not—” Noshiko sighs. “Never mind. I didn’t… I want to talk about yesterday.”

“Oh.” Kira blinks and sits down on the step next to her gingerly. She and her mom have barely spoken since the fight. 

Since the realisation she’d had after talking to her dad. 

“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asks.

“I want to apologise.” 

“Okay.” Kira waits. 

Her mother stares at her.

“Well, are you going to…” Kira frowns. “Wait. Is that your apology? Seriously?”

Noshiko huffs. “What more did you want?”

Kira gives her an exasperated look.

“Alright, alright. Fine,” she says uncomfortably.

Really, it was like pulling teeth.

Noshiko, for once, struggles for words. 

“I never meant to undermine you, Kira. I was only trying to help, but I can see now that I went about it in the wrong way completely. My greatest fear is that you will end up making the same mistakes I did, but your father has helped me realise that I can’t control you, only guide you. That I have to give you the space you need to make mistakes, and learn from them. Not just learn: grow.” She frowns. “I suppose when I look at you, I still see that little girl that used to trail around my legs with that yellow blanket your father crocheted for you when we found out I was pregnant. You remember, with the foxes and the mugunghwa?”

“I was so attached to that thing,” Kira smiles at the memory. “I know that you want what’s best for me, Mom. But I’m not that little girl anymore.”

“I know,” Noshiko laughs wetly. “But you’ll always be my little girl, even when you’re nine hundred years old like me.”

Kira shifts around on the concrete. She hated reminders of her immortality; she preferred not to think about it. 

“The very first moment I held you, I was so terrified,” Noshiko continues. “Because I knew what this world had in store for you, and I was so desperate for you to be safe from that. But everyday, you help me to see that this life is about living and not just surviving. I guess it’s hard for me, to accept that you’re growing up. You’ll be eighteen soon. Where did all the time go?”

Kira wipes at the tear tracks on her mother’s face gently. “Funny, when we have all the time in the world, isn’t it?”

Noshiko sighs. “I’m making a promise, from now on, that I’ll be better at respecting your choices. I vow to make it up to you, if you’ll let me.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Well.” Kira thinks. “You could start by referring to my friends with their names rather than their species.”

Her mouth tilts up. “Anything else?”

“When it occurs to me, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Is that so?” Noshiko folds her arms. “I guess I should be ready, then.”

“And the obsidian?”

“Not yet. But soon. It’s almost ready.”

She supposed that would have to do. 

“What about my own car?” It’s half a joke, but Kira knew she was pushing it.

Her mother scoffs, though it’s soft. “Off to bed with you.”

She gets up and brushes off her skirt. “On my birthday then? It’s a big one.”

“Pfft. I’ll see what I can do.”

Kira skips through the front door and down the hall, pleased. It was nice for things to be smoothed over, to not have to be mad anymore. She wasn’t used to it, and it was kind of exhausting.

She’s halfway up the stairs when she gets an idea. 

Kira turns around slowly and goes back outside. 

“Hang on. There is something you can help me with, actually.”

Her mother is still sitting on the doorstep, peering into the darkness like a guard on watch. Keeping vigil against invisible threats that lurk in the shadows.

Kira wonders if she does that a lot. 

“Right this minute?”

She hesitates. “I know kitsunes can fight. But what else can they do?”

Noshiko looks up at her with a frown. “What are you getting at?”

Kira looks around, leaning in close and lowering her voice even though there was no one around to hear her. “You told me foxes and wolves don’t mix, that it’s what they all say. But has anyone ever tested that?”

“I have a feeling I’m really not going to like this.”

“You did promise.”

Noshiko sighs. “Turn on the coffee machine. It seems like we’re not going to be getting much sleep tonight. And get your father, too. He’s not a violent man, but if he found out we had a late night family bonding research session without him, he might just turn into one.”

Kira laughs. “Noted.”

It turns out her parents have a whole stash of sought after texts on kitsune and other supernatural folklore, fiery illustrations weathered by the years and books that look like they might fall apart at a particularly strong gust of wind, all stashed away in her father’s study. 

“I’ve wished for days like this,” he says when she goes to fetch him, in his slippers and silk pajamas dotted with sheep, only half awake but practically vibrating with excitement.

“Oh, please. Are you forgetting all the hours we’ve spent reading up on your collections? I know more about Um-Yang or Jeju’s uprising or Onryō or Bardo than anyone else my age.”

Ken beams with pride. “Well, you are the daughter of a historian after all. But this one is a new collection. Our most impressive, and one we’ve never been able to show you before.”

He’s right. Kira has seen the Argent’s bestiary before, the shelf of supernatural books in the Hale loft where she and Scott had their first date. 

But neither of them compare to the Yukimura compendium. 

“A couple of books are out being preserved right now. We take extra care to make sure everything is in good condition. There are some rare enough that they’d sell for a lot,” her dad says. “Of course, it helps when you’ve had nine centuries to build your library.”

“And you guys have read all of these?” Kira is wide eyed.

“I’ve not studied as much as I’d like,” he admits. “Finding time can be difficult, and my Japanese isn’t fluent enough to fully understand sometimes, especially when it comes to the older texts. Your mother still consults them on occasion, but not nearly as much as she used to back when she was learning. There’s bound to be things she’s forgotten since then, or concepts that could be better understood with hindsight and new perspective.” 

“We will likely find an answer for your question in one of these books,” Noshiko says from the doorway, holding hot mugs. 

Kira does find a lot of useful stuff, drawings and bits of text and katas that she takes pictures of to try out or remember for later on. She’d never realised how much versatility came along with her powers. Things she hadn’t considered before.

And—in a single print buried amongst a sheaf of notes on bodily possession by spirit element kitsune—a coloured sketch of a fox and a wolf.

Her mother pauses on it. “Is this the kind of thing you were looking for?”

“I guess?” Kira says.

In the sketch, the wolf is hunched over on all fours and the torso of a fox is emerging from it. The artist hadn’t pressed down as hard on the orange of the fox as on the brown of the wolf, making it look not quite solid in comparison. 

Below it, a single word in Japanese. 

“Ten’i,” her father reads.

Kira looks between her parents. “What does it mean?”

Noshiko frowns.

“Transference.”

────────

Malia scrunches her nose. “Cake for breakfast?” 

“They’re the best cakes around,” Lydia huffs. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be wasting gas on driving to the next town.”

“As long as this is only a one time thing,” Malia says. “I think I prefer my Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And my eggs. And my French toast. And all of my turkey and bacon, obviously.”

Kira casts a nervous glance at Lydia and her white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. She’s unusually on edge this morning.

Malia follows her look and seems to pick up on it too. “Hey, you okay?”

Lydia barely glances at her. “Fine.”

Kira worries at her sleeve in the backseat. 

“But you smell super nervous," Malia tilts her head. “And sad, too.”

Lydia throws up her hands. “Is there no such thing as emotional privacy anymore? Stop smelling my chemosignals.”

“I can’t really help it,” Malia says sheepishly. 

“It’s not a big deal.” Lydia’s hunched shoulders finally loosen a little and she sighs heavily. “Sorry for being snappy, just… bad night of sleep.”

“Well, that’s what we’re here for, right?” Kira tries to sound upbeat. “A girl’s morning? A break from everything that’s happened?”

That was what Lydia had texted last night, anyway, citing the photos of Scott and Kira’s excursion to their river spot as inspiration.

“God knows we need it,” Malia grumbles.

“Exactly,” Lydia says. “We better get going now, or we won’t make it back in time for biology.”

Monday morning was one of the only times they all three had free periods at the same time, which was why Lydia had suggested a breakfast trip in the first place. 

As they pull out of the Tate driveway, waving goodbye to Malia’s dad on the porch, Lydia glances at Malia. 

“They sell other things too, not just cakes. If you don’t like really sweet stuff first thing in the morning.”

Malia shrugs. “Eh. No harm in trying it out. I did like that cake we had on Kira’s birthday.” 

“What kind of other stuff?” Kira chimes in.

“Coffee, obviously. But also milkshakes, and muffins and pancakes. Waffles. And French pastries.” The last part is tacked on like a last thought, but Lydia spits out the word ‘French’ like it’s a swear word.

“Like eclairs?” Kira had always loved those back in New York.

“Definitely. They’re really nice there.” Lydia turns the radio on to a low hum. 

The roads are pretty much empty this early, so they speed out of Beacon Hills and into the neighbouring town quickly. Malia rolls the windows down and sticks her torso all the way out into the brutish wind, whooping with delight, and Kira is reminded of Scott so harshly that she pulls her phone out and clicks on their chat before realising it. No new notifications since their texts this morning, but that was to be expected. He would be walking into Chemistry right about now. 

Kira knew his schedule by heart. 

Lydia parks in front of a cafe tucked away on the end of the street, the outside of it painted a rich blue. 

Kira looks up at the sign. “Nat’s Pats.”

“Stupid name, right?” There’s a smile in Lydia’s voice. “But they bake like angels sent by God.”

When they go inside, there’s a blond woman who looks up at them with a friendly smile—and then double takes at the sight of Lydia. 

“As I live and breathe,” she says with a faint German accent.

“Hey Nat,” Lydia says. “Long time no see.” 

“I’d say!” Nat says dryly. “Used to see you two all the bloody time and then all of a sudden I realise it’s been months.” 

Her eyes slide over Kira, and then to Malia. Kira watches them narrow in confusion as she realises there’s three of them, then swivel back to Kira and widen almost comically.

“Oh! I thought you were—” She cuts herself off, shaking her head. “Not quite as tall… It’s the dark hair, I guess. Where’s your usual partner in crime?”

Lydia’s face goes flat, and Kira gets this sinking feeling in her stomach as she realises what all her anxiety had been about. 

Malia looks between the three of them in confusion. 

“Not around anymore.” Lydia’s voice is tight.

“Right. Okay,” Nat blinks. “So, table for three?”

She starts directing them to one in the corner, but Lydia takes one look at it and spins on her heel to stalk off to the other side. “Actually, can we sit over here?”

“Sure.” If Nat is still surprised, she doesn’t show it. Lydia takes a seat in a wide booth with green sofas and Kira and Malia slide in across from her. 

“So what can I get for you guys? Gosh, it’s been a while, but I think I still remember your regular. Cappuccino and French beignets, right?”

Lydia skims over the menu. “I think I’ll go for the mixed berry smoothie and the lemon drizzle cake today. Malia?”

Malia is frowning. “Is there no fresh meat?”

“Um,” Nat looks taken aback. “We have a sausage roll but it’s processed meat, not fresh.”

“Okay, never mind. Well, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so the apple pie? And the Dutch pancakes. And what was that one you said, Kira? Oh, the eclair! And the same smoothie as Lydia, and also this raspberry muffin. Oh, there’s French toast! Two of those. Actually, no, make that three. And an orange juice.” After a moment she adds, “Please.”

Nat is scrawling hurriedly. “Uh, is that everything?”

“Yep.” Malia smacks her lips. “Lydia, you’re paying for all this, right?”

Lydia sighs. “Kira?”

“Umm… I will take the carrot cake. And an iced latte, please.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

Kira makes a rash decision. “Could I also get a red velvet cake, to go? Ooh, and a chocolate cake too, please.”

“I’ll wrap it up for you.”

“Thanks, Nat,” Lydia says. 

“Of course. Let us know if you need anything else.”

Once she’s gone, Malia turns to them. “What kind of food place doesn’t sell fresh meat?”

“Shh!” Kira tries not to laugh. “They have bread pizza, at least?”

“They do?” Malia is aghast. “Why wouldn’t you point that out earlier? Lydia, do you mind if I add more stuff to the tab?”

She’s already hurrying off to the counter. Lydia’s lips twitch upwards as she watches her go.

“You okay?” Kira asks her.

“Oh, never better,” Lydia says airily. 

“We can get cappuccinos and beignets if that’s what you wanted? Just say the word.”

“That’s all in the past now.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not still important. And if it’s important to you, it’s important to us."

Kira knew Malia would cancel her long list of orders if she understood. If Kira explained.

Lydia shakes her head at Kira with an bewildered smile. “You are a gem. You know that?”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome,” Lydia says with a practiced flip of her hair. “Now, I need a distraction right about now, so why don’t you ask me what you want to ask?”

It’s Kira’s turn to marvel. “How did you— You’re a genius, that’s how.”

“Duh. Now spill.”

Kira squints. “It’s more of an academic question, I guess?”

Lydia sits up straight. “Oh, even better. What branch of study are we talking?”

“Uh, supernatural?” 

“Great.” Lydia looks slightly less enthusiastic. 

Kira explains the situation, and her dilemma. “What if it’s not safe, you know?”

“Whenever the fox takes over, its priority is survival.” Lydia is frowning. “Why would this be any different?”

“I didn’t mean safe for me.”

“Ah,” Lydia taps her finger on her chin. “Look, there’s always debate when it comes to phenomena that skirt the line between the normal and the paranormal. Or in this case, the supernatural. It’s natural human reaction, to be doubtful. That’s good. Those second thoughts, they keep us careful. But being too careful can hold you back too.”

Kira is gloomy. “My mom thinks it’s a stupid idea.” 

“There are no ‘stupid ideas’. Actually, I take that back. Emphatically. But the point is: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Fortune favours the bold. And so on and so on.” 

“So you’re saying is the reward is greater than the risk.”

“What is this, Coach’s econ class?” Lydia snorts. “I’m saying, what if the risk is why it’s worth it? In the scientific community, it’s that straightforward. You do your research, you outline your hypothesis, and then you carry out your experiment. There’s risk, yeah. But there’s also precautions. Controlled variables. And there’s no pay off without that risk, so I say, experiment away. If you’re investigating a risk-free concept, then there’s no point investigating it at all.”

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Malia says as she sits back down. 

Kira stares at her, and can almost hear the same exasperation in her voice from the other day.

Stop overthinking, and just do it.

Huh.

“Hey, thanks,” she tells Lydia. 

“No problem.”

“Hellooo?” Malia waves a hand in front of them. 

Lydia finally turns to her. “You ordered another fifteen things, didn’t you?” 

“I’m hungry.” Malia is unapologetic. 

“You’re always hungry. You owe me so much money, you know.”

Kira laughs, suddenly feeling lighter. She checks the time and slips outside. Scott would be walking out of Chemistry now, all the way to English on the other side of the school. So he probably had time for a quick call. 

Sure enough, he picks up on the first ring.

“I was just about to text you,” he says brightly. “How’s the girls date going?” 

“Pretty good. It’s definitely a lot more fun than drawing hydrocarbons in Chem.”

Scott huffs. “Thanks for rubbing it in.”

“My pleasure,” Kira says angelically. “Wanna come to mine after school? No one else will be home all evening.”

“Wow, freaky. Should I bring a you-know-what?”

“Oh my god. Shut up.” Kira has to hold back her grin. “Seriously, come over? I got you cake.”

Scott laughs, tinny over the speaker. “You seem to have developed the habit of bribing me with food.”

“Is it working?” Kira jokes.

Scott’s voice goes hopelessly soft. “You don’t have to bribe me to get me to come over.”

“I know.” Kira really is grinning now.

“I’ll be there,” he says.

“Ok, good. I’ll see you in Math?”

“See you in Math,” Scott confirms before hanging up.

Kira never likes hanging up first.

Their cakes and drinks have arrived when Kira gets back inside, as well as piles of food in front of Malia that she insists is barely half of what she ordered. She grumbles and Lydia rolls her eyes and Kira tries not to giggle at both of them and they all enjoy themselves immensely. 

Malia was right; they did need this. The moments of peace and quiet and normal in between the monstrous Beacon Hills rollercoaster.

They have a bit too much fun and lose track of time, so they’re late for third period. It doesn’t really matter though: it’s Kira’s first time being late ever, Malia doesn’t care and already has two late detentions that week, and Lydia could probably get away with anything when it came to her mother’s class. Natalie just waves the two of them off with a ‘Don’t let it happen again’ whilst Malia strolls off to her Spanish class.

Stiles mock-pouts at them from across the classroom.

“Oi! Where’s my cake?” he mouths at Kira.

She has to duck behind her textbook to hide her laughter.

Math is exasperating because Kira sits right at the front and Scott at the back, so she can barely turn around to look at him, let alone talk. But she can feel his eyes on her head and he cracks jokes at her over text the whole time so it’s okay.

At lunch, she sits with the pack at their usual table outside—the one where she’d first met all of them—until the last fifteen minutes.

“Want me to come too?” Scott asks.

It was usually her routine to spend that time with her dad, like she used to. She didn’t want to forget about him just because she had friends now. 

“That’s okay,” Kira says. Scott was in the middle of helping Malia with homework. Besides, she wanted to thank her dad for staying up late just to help her find answers even though it meant he’d be tired at school today.

When she gets to his classroom, though, someone else is waiting for her.

“Mom?” Kira frowns. “Where’s Dad?”

Her mother ignores her. “It’s finally ready, Kira. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

“What’s ready?” Then—oh. “The obsidian? You’re finally going to explain?”

Noshiko holds out the palm of her hand. Kira stares down at the black rock.

It looks so different.

“The shard of obsidian you brought back, Kira... There's a reason you kept it. And a reason your father took the liberty of making an alteration to it.” Noshiko pauses. “Do you know what it is?”

Kira takes it, and when she does, she can feel the zap that shoots through her arm—not wild and ungovernable, like last time, but a bird coming home to its nest.

“...A tail.”

Her mother looks proud. “Your first.”

────────

It’s date night for her parents, so Kira’s home alone. She takes the opportunity to get in some more practice with her katana, taking the tatami mats outside so she can feel the breeze and the soft yellow glow of the sun, at its low point in the sky behind the bonsai trees her mother had nurtured, as she trains barefoot. 

She doesn’t want to have to rely on the fox always. She wants to control the fox’s fight, rather than let the fox control hers. So far, it was going okay. But Kira knows that okay doesn’t always last. 

So, for now, practice makes perfect. 

Kira trains the way she researches: efficiently, meticulously, and patiently. 

Well. She tries her best, anyway. Patience could be hard-won sometimes. 

Her mother had shown her a new move a while back that she still hadn’t gotten the hang of. It was quite complicated, and Kira finally had enough time to give it another try.

“Woah!” 

Scott, who hadn’t been there a second earlier, has to lurch backwards rapidly to avoid the rippling swing of the blade in front of her. 

“Oh my god.” Kira’s eyes go round. “Where did you come from?”

He throws his hands up like he’s being arrested. “Sorry, sorry!”

“Scott, I could have stabbed you!” Kira lets go of the handle and lets it clatter to the ground. “Maybe don’t sneak up on me when I have a katana in my hands and I’m spinning it around like a ninja?”

“Noted.” Scott rubs at his head sheepishly.

Kira softens and goes to hold him. “You came.”

“Well,” Scott smiles into her shoulder. “I was promised cake.”

She pulls away, only for him to pull her back into a kiss.

“I missed you today,” he mumbles into her mouth.

Kira goes bright red in the face, like she often does. It was so annoying.

Scott presses his forehead to hers. “Want me to help you train?”

Kira pulls a face, leaning into his arms. “Maybe later. After snacks.”

“I feel bad, now,” he says. “You keep getting me food.”

“Just looking after you.”

When the weak feeling in her knees finally goes away, she goes inside to get his promise out of the fridge.

Scott’s smile is wide when she re-emerges with the plate, and two forks.

“Red velvet and chocolate?” Scott waggles his eyebrows at her. “Maybe I should get unwillingly turned into a creepy brainless skull monster by my dead ex-girlfriend’s lunatic werejaguar aunt more often.” 

He’s trying to be goofy, but she sees the way he struggles around the world ‘dead’, in a way that makes her heart ache.

“Stop joking about it,” Kira frowns at him. “It’s serious. And it’s self-care cake, not therapy cake.”

“What’s the difference?”

Kira lays her hand flat on his chest and guides him firmly onto the mat. “Sit down, and eat.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says playfully. “Come here, you have some too.”

She lets him give her a few bites, because she knows he won’t eat otherwise. “Do you like it?”

“Mhm,” Scott says, humming in the back of his throat. “So good.”

When he’s finished, he puts the plate aside and kisses her, chocolate frosting and all. 

“Scott, we’re outside!” Kira squeaks. 

Scott sighs dramatically. “How inconvenient. But we have to make up for lost time.” 

“Lost time?” Kira echoes. “I’m right in front of you. Aren’t you supposed to say that after I get back from New York?”

“I’m an ‘in advance’ kind of guy,” Scott shrugs, tugging her back again.

Kira really hopes her neighbour aren’t around to see them making out on the back lawn. 

When they eventually break away—gasping for breath—Scott says, for the hundredth time, “I can’t believe it’s the whole summer. Basically.”

“I thought we agreed we were just going to ignore that and pretend it’s not happening.”

Scott’s mussed hair falls onto his forehead. “You brought it up first. Now it’s stuck in my head again,” he says glumly.

Kira brushes it back from his face. “It’ll go by in the blink of an eye, okay? You’ll have Stiles to hang out with, obviously, and Lydia too when she gets back from Crete. And you’ll have your hands full with mentoring Liam with the transition. Malia too. You’ll keep busy, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

She wishes, not for the first time, that she didn’t have to go. A whole summer trying to awkwardly reconnect with her old friends who she barely spoke to anymore, whilst missing the friends who really knew her. 

They’d all be bonding here without her.

Would they forget about Kira? Nine weeks could be a long time.

“I suppose so.” The smile doesn’t quite reach Scott’s eyes. “Doesn’t mean I won’t miss you.”

Kira didn’t want to think about missing Scott, or the pack. She might actually cry. “I’ll miss you more.”

Scott makes a face, chuckling. “Are we seriously about to be that gross annoying couple that argues about who misses each other more?”

He always knows how to make her laugh. 

Kira likes it when they sit like this: cross legged, foreheads close, inches away.

“You’ll be okay,” she says softly. “We’ll be okay."

Kira hopes she doesn’t sound like she’s trying to convince herself. 

“Yeah,” Scott says quietly.

She looks at him—really looks at him—the exhaustion he hid well behind his smile, the faint dark circles that still hadn’t completely gone, the tick of his fingers against his thigh. 

The weight on his shoulders that pressed down on his ribcage, threatened to suffocate. 

Kira wishes, so fervently, that she could protect him from it.

“Hey, listen.” She reaches into her pocket. “I had this… idea, I guess?”

“Okay,” Scott says slowly, watching her pull out the creamy fold of paper. “Fire away.”

Kira doesn’t know how to explain, so she just lays out the drawing in front of him.

Scott stares. “What’s this?”

“I found it in my parents’ nine hundred year old collection of kitsune literature.”

“Since when did your parents have a—” Scott shakes his head. “What?”

“I only found out about it last night, but that’s not the point. The Japanese underneath says ‘Ten’i’. It means transference.” 

“Okay… So?”

“So, I thought we could try it.”

Scott looks taken aback. “Try… it? You mean this?”

“Yeah,” Kira shrugs. “I want to see if we can.” 

Scott struggles for words. “Can—what, exactly? What’s the goal?”

“The foxfire protects me. It helps me survive all the crazy stuff. So maybe it could do the same for you, too. If I asked it. If it listened to me.”

“Is that even possible?” Scott is incredulous. “You remember what your mom said. Foxes and wolves don’t mix.”

“Who says?” Kira says fiercely. “Why should we care about a bunch of old stories?”

Scott pauses. 

He considers.

“Do you remember the other day? I said I wanted to protect you, and you said you’d let me.”

Scott gives her an wonderstruck look. “You know, you never cease to amaze me, Kira Yukimura.”

She smiles. “I could say the same to you, Scott McCall. Now, are we doing this or not?”

Kira doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but she orders Scott to stay still and close his eyes. She can’t focus when he’s looking at her, and this whole thing depends on her focus.

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and tries to summon the fox.

It usually happens without her command, so it’s a hit or a miss.

Kira misses. 

She can tell the moment she opens her eyes. They’re tinted in orange, but she isn’t. Kira is more comfortable with her powers by now, but calling on the fox spirit itself is a different matter.

Scott peeks his left eye open at the obvious lack of fire. “Is it working?”

Kira frowns. “No. I don’t think so.”

He looks worried. “Look, we can try again another time. Maybe it takes practice, or maybe it won’t work out the way we thought. It doesn’t matter.” 

Kira wants to scream. 

It does matter.

But she says, “Okay.”

────────

She’s pretty sure Scott almost forgets about it after that. Life is busy, after all, and the True Alpha has responsibilities. And school, and a job.

Kira doesn’t, though. 

In the dark quiet of the night, when everyone else is asleep, she closes her eyes and tries to light her room up in fire. 

Sometimes, it works. A lot of the time it doesn’t. 

That was okay. Kira was good at being patient. 

Another thing she was good at? Patterns. A lot of people liked to say: history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. 

Kira didn’t know if she could technically call herself a historian, but like any good historian would, she was inclined to disagree. History was made up of patterns.

It was easy to spot the one that she was usually able to summon her foxfire in high stakes situations.

Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how one looked at it—she lived in Beacon Hills, so those were in plentiful supply. 

Just when they think the Deadpool’s done with and they can relax, they’re dashing out into the night because Stiles hears on his radio that there’s something running around the Preserve with jagged teeth and a penchant for blood. 

Scott had decided against involving Liam, but the rest of them are all in the Jeep as they pull up to Lydia’s.

“Had any premonitions?” Malia asks bluntly as Lydia slides into the backseat with Kira and Scott. Stiles gives her a look. “What? I’d like to know if I’m going to die tonight.” 

“No one’s dying tonight,” Scott says firmly. 

“Yeah, come on guys,” Stiles pulls a Stiles-face. “This is gonna be a piece of cake. Right, Scotty?” 

“Do we have anything else to go off of?” Lydia asks. “You said teeth, not fangs. So not a werewolf?”

Scott looks at Stiles. “We were thinking a wendigo? It took a chunk out of Strauss’s arm, so…”

“Sounds fun,” Lydia says grimly. “Real convenient for us non-healers.”

“Just one dude?” Malia scoffs. “We took down a whole bunch of assassins like last week.”

“Exactly. We’ll be in and out.”

“Don’t jinx it, Stiles.”

“We will. Just watch. Bet we’ll be home in time for midnight munchies.” 

Lydia tuts as the Jeep pulls into park. “Easier said than done.”

It must be the universe laughing at them when, ten seconds later, there’s a hair raising thump! on the roof of the Jeep.

Scott sighs. “Told you not to jinx it, dude.”

He’s already scrambling out of the car with his claws out, closely followed by a roaring Malia.

“Not again,” Stiles whimpers, staring at the indent in the metal.

Kira pats him on the shoulder consolingly as she clambers out of the backseat. “Look on the bright side. Better the Jeep than you?”

Stiles grumbles under his breath. “Let’s catch this asshole. I’m getting my money back if it’s the last thing I do.”

Lydia and Kira have to lurch out of Scott and Malia’s way as they leap over the Jeep and wrestle the figure off the roof, shoving him against the car door. 

Kira blinks. He’s just a kid.

Scott seems to realise at the same time because he pauses, grip faltering. The boy takes the opportunity to wrench out of his grasp and sink his claws into Malia’s stomach.

“No!” Stiles yells.

Malia staggers, clutching at the wound, eyes wide in shock. 

Scott catches her in his arms. “Malia!”

Kira, Stiles, and Lydia race around the trunk of the car.

“Are you okay?” Kira kneels beside her. “How bad is it?”

“I’m fine,” Malia grits out, pushing away from them. She leans against the Jeep. 

Scott retracts his arms, hovering worriedly. “I’m sorry.”

Malia shakes her head, panting. “Go! Go get him!”

Stiles is pressing down on Malia’s bloody side, hard. She roars at him, fangs spurting and eyes going blue.

Scott looks between her and the retreating figure of the boy, visibly torn.

“We’ve got this, Scott,” Stiles shouts, he and Lydia laying Malia back on the forest floor. He looks from Scott to Kira. “You guys go!”

Scott hesitates. “I’m the only one who can take her pain!” 

Malia growls from the floor. “I’ll be fine, Scott. I’m already healing. Go!”

Scott, after one final look, turns and bolts after the boy. Kira races after him.

“Kira!” Scott yells. He splits off towards the left.

“On it,” she calls back, swerving to the right. 

The boy isn’t as fast as them. It only takes a minute to catch up, and then Scott and Kira box him in from both sides. His eyes go wide as he spots Kira and he dodges to the left, only to be met by the breadth of an Alpha.  

Scott plucks him out of the air easily. “Gotcha.” 

The boy struggles in his grasp. “Let me go!” 

“What’s your name?“ Scott asks calmly. 

In reply he roars at them, revealing simmering white eyes and a set of long, eerie, comblike teeth. 

“You were right,” Kira says. “A wendigo.”

His eyes snap to Kira and narrow. All she hears is the razor-sharp swish of his claws coming out and then he’s swiping them at her, aiming for the same place as he’d stabbed Malia. 

Scott tugs the boy back towards him so harshly that they thud together.

“Don’t touch her.” Scott’s eyes are flashing red.

“What are you doing all alone out here?” Kira asks. “Why did you attack the Deputies?" 

He ignores her. Scott turns the boy around to face him, still gripping his hands together so he can’t move. “Hey, are you listening to us? What’s your name? Where’s your family?”

The last question sets the boy off.

“My name,” he roars, “is Walcott! Ian Walcott! And my family are all dead, because you killed them!”

Ian jabs at Scott, puncturing a hole in his chest. 

Scott barely notices, as if he isn’t bleeding at all. He looks stunned. “You're a Walcott? How? They said no one in the house survived.” 

Ian’s lip curls, contempt dripping from every word. “I go to boarding school in the Netherlands. Lucky me, huh? They break up for summer earlier there. Imagine my surprise when I find out I have no one left to go home to!”

He lunges for Scott again, and Kira leaps forward to stop him. She copies Scott, keeping his arms behind his back. 

Scott’s mouth turns down gravely. “We didn’t kill your family, Ian. They were targeted by trained assassins because of the Deadpool, a hit list of supernaturals in Beacon Hills created by Peter Hale.”

Ian stops struggling momentarily. “Assassins?”

“We were targeted as well,” Kira adds, hoping it would help him calm down.

“You’re the True Alpha,” he throws it at Scott like it’s a weapon. “Why didn’t you stop it?”

“He did!” Kira says indignantly. 

“Not fast enough though,” Scott says. 

Ian’s hesitation melts into anger. “You’re lying! He’s the Alpha that turned you, Peter Hale. She told me! You were in on his plan. You let it happen!”

Scott tilts his head. “Who’s ‘she’, Ian?”

“Kate Argent,” Ian hisses.

Kira can’t help the horrified gasp that wrenches out of her.

“When? Where?” Scott demands. “Did you talk to her, in person?” 

The refusal to answer is all the answer they need.

“Where, Ian?”

”Here,” Ian says jerkily. “In the cemetery, when I was visiting what’s left of my family.”

Kira and Scott exchange a nervous look.

“Six days ago,” Ian continues. 

Kira’s blood runs cold. 

Kate was supposed to be on the run. Why would she come back to Beacon Hills? How did she dare?

Six days ago, she’d been laying in a river watching the sunset with Scott, and Kate had been in Beacon Hills. That close to them, and they’d had no idea.

“Whose grave was she visiting?” Scott asks softly, but his eyes carry the somber weight of knowing.

Ian screws up his face as he recalls. 

“Allison Argent.”

Scott doesn’t quite flinch, but his eyes flutter. 

“Who was she?” Ian asks, faint curiosity curling around his fangs. “Kate’s daughter?”

“Niece.” Scott’s voice is gravelly. He clears his throat. “How old are you, Ian?”

The reply is quiet, less bite to it. “Sixteen.”

Kira chews at her lip. 

He was too young

She loosens her grip on him. He’d stopped fighting back anyway.

“You’re not alone in this,” she says. “We can help you.”

“Don’t need help,” Ian scowls. “Or pity. Especially not from you.”

Scott sighs wearily. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me. In the meantime, we should get you to the Sheriff so he can figure out what to do with you.”

“What to do with me?” Ian’s eyes are slits. “I’m not some box on your checklist to mark off. I’m not going anywhere with either of you.”

“Well, we can’t just let you go,” Scott frowns. “Not unless you stop hurting people.”

Ian growls. “You may be an Alpha, but you’re not mine.”

Her fox’s eyes flash like a warning, she sees the dagger Ian pulls out of his inside pocket come up and towards Scott almost like it’s sand trickling through an hourglass and it doesn’t even take thinking. She knows it’s worked by the way the darkness in the thicket of trees around them bursts into a fiery, glowing orange.

Kira watches the foxfire lighting her ablaze streak across the clearing and into Scott, just seconds before the blade pierces his chest, directly at his heart. 

Scott makes the punched out noise of all the air leaving his lungs, eyes wide in surprise.

Ian sways, naive triumph flickering on his face. With one final smirk, he darts away into the Preserve.

Kira barely spares him a second glance. “Scott!”

The cry pierces her chest, as if she was stabbed too.

She closes the distance between them and is already reaching for him, for his arms, his wound, anything to help, when the blade slowly disintegrates and crushes into dust that blows away in the wind. 

“Did you just—” Scott blinks like a deer in headlights. “What the hell just happened?”

The wound in his chest creeps in on itself, skin stitching back up to smooth. 

Warmth settles deep in Kira’s stomach. The burning in her chest disappears. 

“It worked,” Kira whispers. “Just like the drawing.”

“I can feel it,” Scott says with an awed look. He clutches at his heart. “Here.” 

“I think I can… Wait. Give me a sec.”

She squints in concentration. Moments later, her fox fire flows out of Scott and back to her. She feels it return, a second skin. 

Scott's eyes flicker red as it leaves. He blinks it away like he’s coming out of a daze. 

“Kira,” he says, deep in his throat.

“Yeah?” 

“Are you gonna come over here so I can kiss the hell out of you?”

One day, Kira will learn how to stop blushing around this boy. 

She bounds over to him and tugs his face down to hers. Scott brushes her hair back gently as he follows. 

“That was insane,” he grins. “How do you do the impossible? Everytime.”

“Says you.”

“Aw, come on!” Stiles bounds into the clearing and groans at the sight of them, followed by an exhausted Lydia and a fully healed Malia. “You let him get away? I needed my money back, dude.”

Scott snorts. “I’m sure that the Jeep is your mechanic’s favourite charity case by this point.”

Stiles swats at him. “Seriously though, what happened?”

“Well,” Scott sighs. “He was a wendigo, like we thought.”

Lydia frowns. “He didn’t take a chunk out of either of you, I hope.” 

Kira shrugs and shoots Scott a secretive grin. “We managed.”

He grins back. “Quite well, I’d say. We make a good team.”

“Like a house on fire,” Kira agrees solemnly. 

Scott breaks and bursts into laughter. 

Malia looks between the two of them. “You guys are so weird. Thanks for failing to avenge me.”

“You’re welcome?” 

“I would have ripped him apart with my teeth, by the way.”

Stiles winces. “It’s—”

“Progress?” they all finish.

Stiles squints at them. “Well, yeah.” 

The residual adrenaline is still humming faintly, fire lapping at the inside of her ribcage. Scott and Stiles and Lydia huddle up to discuss Ian and how they’re going to deal with him. Kira, suddenly exhausted, sits down to lean against a nearby tree and closes her eyes. Scott will explain it all to her later, she’s sure. 

She hears Malia sit down too. “You good?”

Kira cracks open an eye to look at her. “I feel like I should be asking you that.”

Malia lifts up her shirt to show off the unmarred skin, shrugging. “Coyotes heal fast. I’m not the one collapsed on the floor.”

“I’m not collapsed. I’m just…” Kira struggles for the right word.

“Buzzing?”

“What?”

“You, and Scott. Both of you have this weird buzzing around you.” Malia tilts her head. “You smell better too.”

She’s somewhat offended. “Better how?”

“You don’t smell all anxious anymore.”

“Oh.” Kira smiles. “I guess I figured it out.”

“Good,” Malia says. “You were starting to stress me out.”

She’s left laughing softly while Malia gets up to join the others. Her face is digging into the rough bark of the tree and her leggings will be covered in soil but her eyes flutter closed anyway, too sleepy to care. She hadn’t realised the process of transference would take so much out of her.

In the background, she can hear the others murmuring.

“…it stands to reason we should figure out what she was here for.” Stiles is agitated.

“We know what she was here for.” Scott says quietly. “To visit Allison.” 

Lydia’s face goes flat in that familiar way.

“Don’t be naive, Scott,” she frowns. “There’s always something.”

“We need to tell Argent…” 

Kira isn’t sure how much time has passed when she’s woken up by Scott nudging her shoulder. He’s wrapped her up in his hoodie, and her head is resting on his shoulder, the low rumble of an engine beneath them.

“Hey,” Scott smiles at her. 

She pushes hair out of her face as she sits up. “Are you exhausted too?”

“Not really. The opposite, actually. Think I maybe stole some of your energy.”

“You mean borrowed.” Kira looks around, only then realising they’re not in the Jeep but parked outside her house in her dad’s car, her mom in the front seat. “Where are the others?

“Stiles took Lydia and Malia home. Thought I’d save him a stop or two and I called your parents to pick us up. Well, your mom. I know you said your dad goes to bed early.”

“In his defence, he’s a morning person,” her mom says.

Kira blinks at her sluggishly, then back at Scott as she realises she was asleep the whole drive home whilst her mom and Scott weren’t.

“Oh my god,” she whispers to Scott. “She didn’t say anything weird, did she?”

“I heard that,” Noshiko says.

Scott starts laughing. 

He has dimples when he does. 

“She thinks I’m so embarrassing.” Noshiko is looking at Scott in the rearview mirror.

“I do not!” Kira squeaks. She does.

“Scott assures me that neither of you were hurt by this rogue wendigo, but I hope you won’t be making these late night adventures a common occurrence.”

Kira shrugs. “No promises.”

It was Beacon Hills, after all. 

Her mom sighs and opens the car door. Kira tenses.

But what she says, with twitching lips, is, “I think it’s time I go to bed. I’m far too old to be out this late.”

“Mom, it’s like eleven pm.” 

“Exactly.” Noshiko gives them a stern look. “I expect you both to be in bed by midnight at the very latest. You have school tomorrow, remember.”

She turns the keys, leaves them in the ignition, and goes inside. 

Kira blinks. It’s that easy. It reminds her of New York, of how things used to be before she knew kitsune and wolves existed and that her mother was older than the books she and her father studied. When everything was less complicated.

Kira turns to Scott. “Was it really fine?”

“Really,” he promises.

She couldn’t clearly remember the last time she’d seen them interact properly. 

Probably the day of the wretched visual confirmation plan.

She wonders about what her mother had said that day. What it was Scott decided to dream about.

She hoped they were good dreams.

Kira hates thinking about those forty five minutes. Hates thinking about Scott’s heart stopping, of her being the one to do it to him.

“It didn’t feel like before, did it?” she frowns, the thought like a stone in her throat the second it occurs. “When I—you know.”

“No,” Scott says immediately. “It wasn’t like dying at all. It was…” He clutches his hand to his chest, where the fox spirit had disappeared into him. “It was the complete opposite. The most alive I’ve felt in a long time.”

“Like when we were on the freeway?” Kira can still see the glee on his face so clearly, how he’d whooped into the wind like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Yeah,” Scott smiles. “Exactly like that.”

Well. That’s all Kira wants. To protect him. To take care of him. For her powers to give him life rather than take it away, no matter how many times he’d managed to claw his way back from the grave. 

She hoped with all her heart he’d never have to do it again. Not on her watch.

Kira gives him a shaky grin. “Do you want to sit on top of my car?” She’s seen him and Stiles do that before, with the Jeep.

“Hell yeah,” he says.

She looks at him carefully. His eye bags were a lot better. Between her, Stiles, and Melissa, they’d been making sure he slept. He still got that horrible, deathly look in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking. He still brushed his fingers over his skin absentmindedly, as if to remind himself it wasn’t the pelts. But he was smiling more everyday. Kira wasn’t sure anymore if things would go back to normal, for her or for Scott, but she was looking after him. And so was her fox. 

Maybe it would never be ‘less complicated’ again. 

That was okay too, though. She could deal with complicated. And if she couldn’t, well. It was no measure of her strength.

They climb out of the car and onto the roof. Kira lets Scott boost her up, even though technically she doesn’t really need the help. They lay side by side, the tops of their feet dangling off the back of the car as they stare up at the expanse of the starry night sky.

“Kira?”

“Hmm?”

“Remember how you let me pick the music last time?” Scott reaches into the pocket of his hoodie to pull out her iPod, tucking one bud into her ear and the other into his. “It’s your turn.” 

Kira bites back a smile. “Alright, fine. But you’re not allowed to judge me for being corny, okay? Because I’m maybe feeling a little nostalgic today.”

Scott raises his brows curiously as she fiddles with her old playlists, and then laughs when the intro to ‘Chasing Cars’ floats through the wires and into the space between them.

“Hey, I’m not judging.” Scott stares right at her as he says, “I love this song. Always.”

Kira looks over at him, a smile tugging at her lips as she drinks in the sight of him. 

She looks him directly in the eye as she softly says, “I love this song, too.”

“Yeah?” he grins.

Kira reaches out to take his hand. “Yeah.”

His fingers curl around hers, squeeze once, twice, thrice.

They lay there way past midnight, until Kira forgets everything in the world except Scott and his cherry soft skin and warm brown eyes. 

Until it didn’t matter that they’d been to hell and back in the last two months, or she was going away to New York for the next two months, because she had right now, and the buzzing fire in her veins, and the boy who—even though neither of them had quite said it out loud yet—she knew she loved.

────────

Many, many years later, Scott lies on the hard ground with arrow wounds in his bloody chest and a dissipating heat in his lungs as the glow of the foxfire flows out of his body and back into Hikari’s.

And for a moment—a single, tiny, glittering moment—when he looks up at her, watching the orange in her eyes settle back into brown, it’s a different face he sees.

A different kitsune.

Oh, that trickster. 

Still protecting him with her tricks, even after all this time.