Chapter Text
The hallways are empty and silent except for the sound of Stiles’ boots hitting the floor as she makes her way towards Morrell’s office. Practice had finished twenty minutes earlier and most of girls hadn’t bothered with showers, more excited to be free from school for the weekend. For the dates they’d been talking about all through practice- annoying the crap out of Finstock-, or going the mall and shopping. Stiles couldn’t help but be jealous. Even shopping with Lydia and Allison would have been a more pleasant experience than the familiar feeling of unease that grows in her stomach as she gets closer to Morrell’s office. Not for the first time she wishes she had some excuse to bail from her bi-weekly meeting but she couldn’t come up with anything credible, so she had no choice but go.
Stiles would admit, should anyone actually ask her, that the road to becoming a emissary wasn’t as exciting and experience as she’d expected. Maybe her two teachers, Morrell and Deaton, were slightly to blame for that because it became clear within her first few meetings that there was more to being an emissary for a pack then cryptic remarks. Stiles’ hopes that some of her teachers cool might rub off on her, making her appear less like a hyperactive teenager and more like someone who could screw over any big bad that came their way, were so far falling short. Instead she found herself stuck in Morrell’s office every Friday afternoon for their seemingly pointless meetings and she had a desk that now groaned under the very old leather bound books Deaton gave her to read and memorise every Monday. Seriously, being a trainee emissary sucked.
Okay, Stiles would admit the meetings weren’t completely pointless. It’s just that, surprisingly, nothing was actually attacking the wider Beacon Hills community. Four months had passed since the dramatic showdown with the alpha pack. Kali was dead, Deucalion was off alive (and neither Derek or Scott would listen to her on why that was a bad idea) and the twins were travelling on the notion they wanted to find themselves. Much to both Danny and Lydia’s annoyance. So Beacon Hills, for the first time in two years, was blissfully quiet on the supernatural front- well except werewolves, but they were a given in Beacon Hills apparently. So Stiles weekly meetings with Morrell to discuss her experiences with supernatural nasties were getting slightly repetitive. There are only so many times that Stiles could say that she didn’t care about her scar, that ran along the width of her chest below her breasts, before she wanted to punch something. And she didn’t have much input on how she felt about Derek killing Kali for inflicting her wound, because the second she saw the blood that came with Derek basically ripping out the woman’s throat Stiles had fainted. Stiles knew the idea should have at least been psychologically scarring but really, at this point she was kinda full up on repressed guilt so it was nice not actually blame herself for something. For once.
Stiles reached Morrell’s office and threw her backpack down on one of the three empty chairs that were placed outside the office. She walked towards the door and knocked three times before dropping down in the chair closest to the door. Morrell would open the door and yet her in when she was ready, so Stiles pulled out her phone and loaded up Candy Crush. She was determined to catch up on Isaac, who somehow managed to be five levels ahead of her despite the fact Stiles was actually spending more time than was healthy playing the stupid game. Whatever, she had time on her hands. She was doing normally teenage things for once, like getting addicted to games on her mobile and staying out late with friends.
“Victory!” Stiles shouted, throwing her arms up into the air as she finally completed the level. As she dropped her arms back to rest on her lap she half expected to see Morrell’s face emerge from her office with an eyebrow raised high- seemly another thing that everyone but Stiles could do in Beacon Hills- but she got nothing. Not even a cough from Morrell’s office which was strange. Stiles looked down at her phone and saw that fifteen minutes had passed since she’d arrived at the office and Morrell had never left her outside for this long before. Images of Morrell laying dead in her office, eyes wide open in horror filled Stiles head as she jumped up and threw open the office door. But she was faced with nothing but an empty office.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Stiles says to herself as she steps inside. She closes the door behind her and walks towards the desk, not completely sure that she won’t see Morrell laying dead behind it but there’s nothing. Morrell’s office is completely empty and Stiles had been waiting outside like an idiot when Morrell had bailed on her- and wasn’t that a massive kick in the teeth. Stiles had spent most of the afternoon wishing to do the very same thing.
Stiles’ gaze dropped to the envelope that rested on Morrell’s immaculate desk and couldn’t help but cringe when she saw it was addressed to her, using her full name. She snatched the envelope up from the desk, tore it open and stuffed the envelope into her pocket- determined to shred the thing later- and began to read what Morrell had written.
“An errand?” Stiles couldn’t believe that despite being bailed on, and having no explanation from Morell on what was more important, she was expected to go and buy some books for the woman. Typical. Most girls got to go spend their Friday nights doing things they liked and Stiles was going to be stuck shopping. God she hated shopping. But whatever, her glamourous journey to becoming an emissary continued so Stiles sucked it up, stuffed the letter in her pocket and shut the office door behind her before heading towards her Jeep.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Stiles- what’s wrong?!” Scott asked, after picking up his phone of the first ring. Stiles couldn’t help but laugh, it only had taken her best friend becoming the true alpha for him to actually manage to answer his phone before she left about five scaving voicemails.
“Nothings wrong, Scott, I can ring you without something being wrong. In fact, I do it pretty regularly.”
“You’ve got a habit of finding trouble, Stiles,” Scott said sagely through the phone and while Stiles would admit that yes, it was her curiosity that had gotten her friend turned into a werewolf, it was still kinda rude to hold it against her. He’d tried to kill her enough times for them to be equal.
“And aren’t you supposed to be with Morrell?”
“Yeah, don’t remind me. That’s why I’m calling. She’s disappeared and somehow I’m left running around doing her shopping but there’s a catch.” Stiles said as she jumped down the front steps of the school and began to walk towards the parking lot.
Scott sighs. “What is it?”
“The store I’ve got to go to, it’s in Fairview Heights so could you like keep Derek distracted if he hears the Jeep?”
“Fine,” is Scott’s reply and Stiles knows he’s not happy about it but he’s not going to force himself on her little adventure, unlike another alpha she knows. “I’m supposed to be meeting Derek and Isaac at the house anyways. But you’d better be at your’s when I come round later, we’ve got alien butt to kick.”
“Duh, Scott, and thanks.”
“No problem, and be careful.” Scott says quickly, hanging up before she can even argue. But Scott’s covering for her and she’s reminded once again why she loves him. The McHale pack, and yeah she totally made up their name, somehow manages to exist with two completely different alphas. Stiles is glad she’s at least able to persuade Scott to let her do things with light bribery. Derek on the other hand is complicated.
Derek had been acting strange ever since the night of the alpha smackdown. Acting weirdly protective over her and being dead set against her doing anything he thought might put her in danger, which was basically everything. And it wasn’t like Stiles could exactly remember much of that night anyway, because everything after being in Deaton’s was a blur. Stiles remembered nothing except how Derek had held her hand while she’d gotten stitches and how his green eyes never left her own brown ones the whole time. The drugs Deaton had given her after that rocked because she doesn’t remember much pain in the next few days, but that’s where she thinks the awkwardness between them is from. She’d woken up the next day to Derek sleeping on her desk chair yet she could remember nothing from the night before, and after that he never stopped glancing at her in a way that made her sure she’d probably done something stupid.
But Stiles pushed those thoughts from her mind as she reached her Jeep. Instead, she loads up the directions to The Rabbit’s Foot, the shop Morrell was sending her, focuses on driving to Fairview Heights and praying that she somehow made it back before her dad deemed it late enough to worthy questioning where she’d been- which was happening way too often at the minute.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The drive to Fairview Heights is uneventful. The town itself is only slightly bigger than Beacon Hills, but is more touristy than industrial in nature so traffics slower than Stiles is used to. The only thing that had Stiles worried was the blue pickup that had been on her tail ever since she’d left Beacon Hills. But as Stiles parks in front of the butchers that is next to The Rabbit’s Foot the truck continues driving and she slumps back into her chair, feeling a bit stupid.
“Not everyone’s out to get you.” Stiles tells herself before climbing down from the Jeep and walking to the sidewalk.
The Rabbit’s Foot looks like any other of the touristy shops that line the busy street it finds itself on. It’s made of the same cherry red bricks as the other shops, the hanging baskets hanging beside the door are filled with spring flowers and the wide window tries desperately to try and entice people inside. Stiles walks up to the window and guesses that most tourists probably wouldn’t set foot inside, what with the massive crystals, incense bottles, books that promote ‘spiritual healing’ and if that wasn’t enough to turn away most of them away, the thing in the middle of the display that looks like an actual mummified head would most definitely do it. Hell, two years ago Stiles probably would have joined the mass population in running to the hills upon seeing the thing- mummies are creepy, okay- but she’s reached a point in her life where she’s learnt not to judge a book by it’s cover, or in this case a bookstore by it’s creepy window display.
With that depressing thought Stiles walks around a particularly large group of elderly ladies and stops in front of the door. She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders before grabbing the brass doorknob, which is pretty fancy in her opinion, and walking through the doorway into The Rabbit’s Foot.