☾

After school, I had walked home, despite Stiles protests. I just had to clear my head from the jealousy that's still in my system. Jealousy is irrational because I know that Stiles loves me, it's just something that I've never really experienced before. But then again, it seems his type is blondes. I just need to trust him, because mutual trust makes a relationship work, and I need to have faith in his feelings for me. And I do trust him, I have faith in him. Total, and complete faith in him.

I had to ignore it when he texted me about getting ready for a group date tonight, that Lydia will be fifth wheeling, which is why Stiles got the keys from Boyd, but I don't know to what exactly. So I left on my outfit I've had on all day; black leggings, a thin blue t-shirt, and a white cardigan.

He picked me up a few hours later and then Scott, and now we're in front of the ice skating rink with Allison and Lydia. Now I wish I dressed more warmly for the occasion.

He opens the doors and flips the lights on, him and Scott grinning. I smile widely at Stiles as memories of going ice skating back in New York floods my mind, excited to be experiencing an old past time that my friends and I did. Lydia and Allison grin as well and we grab our skates, Lydia and I flanking Stiles at the bleachers as we lace up our skates.

"Could it be any colder in here?" I mutter to myself, rubbing my arms over the material of my shirt and my legs over my leggings. I should've worn my jeans. Usually, I have no problems with getting warm, but ever since the Bite, my body temperature has been weird. Sometimes I have no problem with body heat, and then there are times where I can't seem to get warm, no matter what I do.

Stiles rummages through his backpack and takes out a balled up orange jacket, holding it out for me. "Here," he says kindly.

"She's wearing blue," Lydia points out in a 'duh' tone. "Orange and blue, not a good combination."

"But it's the colors of the Mets," Stiles protests.

I bite my lip to suppress a grin but I fail. "I'm a die-hard Mets fan myself." A laugh escapes my lips at the way his face lights up as I take the jacket, smoothing it out before sliding my arms through the sleeves which swallows my hands since his body is much bigger than mine.

Then he holds out a pack of Reese's butter cups, my mouth instantly watering. Gosh, I love those little pieces of peanut butter and chocolate. They're like heaven. I smile and take it gingerly, opening it and putting one of them in his hands and he instantly inhales it as I unwrap mine, popping the whole thing in my mouth.

"Okay, um, maybe orange and blue is not the best," Stiles says while finishing up his laces, swallowing the last of his Reese's. "Right, um, you know, sometimes there's other things you wouldn't think would be a good combination end up turning out be, like, a perfect combination, you know, like two people together... Who nobody ever thought would be together, ever." I smile adoringly at him, the memory of feeling jealous vanishing.

He's talking about us; no one really expected us to end up together. We're two people who a lot of people think wouldn't mix well together, and yet, I can't think of anyone else I can have this kind of relationship with. Hell, I can't think of another person that I want to be with like I am with Stiles.

"No, I can see that," Lydia says, kind of ruining our moment.

"You can?" Stiles asks, surprised. He knows that Lydia really didn't like that I had a crush on him in the beginning and he wants her approval of us since she's my best friend.

"Yeah," she says. "They're cute together."

Our eyes follow hers to Allison and Scott, the latter holding her hand as they get up. "Oh, yeah, them," Stiles says, dejected.

"Cute," Lydia comments.

"Cute," Stiles mutters sarcastically. "Adorable."

Lydia gets up and walks gracefully down the steps, leaving Stiles and me alone. "I know that you were talking about us," I state, his eyes snapping to me. I smile warmly at him, shrugging. "No one really expected us to be together, and I never really expected to fall in love with you, and yet, we turned out to be the perfect combination."

His grin is wide and blinding, and he jumps and presses his lips to mine eagerly, cupping my cheeks with his large and cold hands. I raise my hands to his waist beneath his purple hoodie, returning the kiss with equal fervor as we scoot closer to each other. That feeling of being complete settles over me as we continue to kiss, his head tilting to the side to deepen it, his tongue brushing my bottom lip and I can taste the peanut butter and chocolate on his lips as I let him in, making it even better. And of course, a hint of his favorite gum, mint-mojito.

"Stop hogging Mary Anne!" Lydia yells playfully from behind the glass.

We break apart, foreheads pressed together as we breathe deeply. "Come on, stud muffin," I whisper as I start to stand, his lips capturing mine for one more kiss. "You've got all night to do that if you cash in your surprise."

I leave him sitting there, heading over to the entrance and carefully stepping onto the ice, pushing off and gliding over to Lydia, watching as she does a scratch spin she learned from ice skating at her uncle's in Minnesota. Smiling, I do the same, finishing with a simple spin. I see Stiles watching with an astonished grin and I skate over to him, using my feet to stop less than a foot away from him.

"Well?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "Come on." I grab his hand and pull him along with me as I skate forward, going slow for him.

☾

"What made you think of ice skating as a group date?" I ask Stiles as we skate around the rink, our hands linked together, warming up mine efficiently. We're enjoying the silence, him risking a kiss on my cheek every now and then which resulted in him almost falling over and knocking me down.

"I just thought it'd be fun, you know? Something we could do as a group, and I thought it'd be a good idea for Lydia to come along since I know you haven't had the time to hang out with her." Then he raises his eyebrows. "Now, where'd you learn to skate?"

"Ice skating rink in central park," I answer. "I remember falling flat on my ass the first time, and then continued until one day, my friend Sophie  decided to teach me how to skate without hurting myself." I let go of his hand and skate a little ahead of him, carefully spinning around to face him while skating backward.

"Okay, now I wanna know if you've ever been to a Mets game when you were living in New York?" He grins.

"Twice with my friends, who also happened to like the Mets. Two of them, who were the other nerds in the circle, was talking about the mathematics of the game." He chuckles and arches an eyebrow playfully, reaching for my hand to pull me closer, nearly knocking us over. "Easy there, babe, don't wanna hurt yourself," I grin, grabbing his biceps and steadying him.

"Wouldn't it also hurt you if I fell on top of you?"

"I'd probably hurt my head a bit, but I'd heal. Besides, you can't weigh that much, so I doubt we'd be able to crack the ice or any bones. Maybe bruise a bit of bones, but that's normal." He arches an eyebrow and leans down, giving me a little Eskimo kiss that makes me smile widely, feeling incredibly light and happy for the first time in a while.

"Have I ever mentioned how much I love it when you talk nerdy to me?" He asks, continuing to give me Eskimo kisses.

"You're such a cheese ball," I giggle, and he cuts me off with a sweet kiss. My hands travel up his biceps and to the back of his neck, tilting my head slightly to deepen the kiss, tiny moans escaping our lips at the same time.

A dull pressure forms in my head, faint pain flaring through my head but I don't stop, instead I raise myself up as much as I can in skates to kiss him harder. I can't let every little thing stop myself from enjoying my life. He responds eagerly, the tip of his tongue running along the seam of my lips and I grant him access, letting him take over, my hands leaving his neck to curl into his purple hoodie. Desire and pain blend together, shooting through me and every nerve in my being.

I break the kiss when air becomes necessary and smile, slowly opening my eyes, but when they fall onto the ice, my heart skips a beat. There's a purple petal on the ground, and another and another in a trail. With my heart pounding and breathing shallow, I let go of Stiles to slowly follow it. "Mary Anne?" Stiles asks, trying to catch my hand but I jerk it away, ignoring him as I come to a stop, the purple flower sticking out of the ground.

Wolfsbane.

Right next to it is an outline of something beneath the ice. Dropping to my knees, and ignoring the pain shooting up my legs from it, I tentatively reach out to brush away the top shavings of ice, eyes widening at the sight of Peter Hale under there. His own eyes snap open and his jaw drops open, yelling and hitting the ice, thrashing around violently. I jerk back, and like at the hospital, I let out a shrilling scream, another one following mine, one a bit louder than mine.

A pair of arms wrap around me and I struggle blindly, terrified, my screaming turning into broken wails and my eyes squeezing shut.

When I open my eyes, the wolfsbane and Peter are gone.

☾

"What the hell was that, Mary Anne? What did you see? You were freaked out too, but not like we were. You saw something!" Stiles rants as he follows me up the stairs of my house. We had successfully soothed Lydia until she was a bit calmer, and Stiles and I drove her home. She didn't say anything, but I knew that the bite is affecting her, it's clear. And it's affecting me like that as well.

It may seem like nothing, but this is changing me. Not only turning me into what I am, but it's changing who I was before all this. And that scares the hell out of me.

I haven't told anyone about this, but a while ago, after I got out of the hospital, I've woken up at my desk with a pencil in my hand, sheets of paper all over the wood. I've been drawing symbols and things in a different language in my sleep. That cannot be a good thing.

I press my lips in a thin line, staying silent until we got into my room, him shutting the door and I turn around to face him, right in front of my desk on the other side of the room. "I don't know," I respond weakly, crossing my arms over my chest.

His left eye twitches, leaning his back against the door. "How do you not know what you saw?" He asks loudly, flailing his hands around to add flair.

"I don't know what I saw!" I growl lowly, hands clenching almost painfully around my biceps.

He pushes himself off the door, moving forward until there's about a foot of space between us. "I get that you have some trust issues, considering what you've been through, but what will it take to show you that you can trust me?"

"Is that what you think this is about?" I fire back, incredulously. "That I don't trust you?"

"Is this not what it's about?"

"Of course I trust you!"

"Then why won't you tell me what you saw?"

"Maybe because I didn't see anything!" I raise my voice, but I'm not yelling. I can't tell him what happened, because then he'll look at me differently, and I don't think I'd be able to handle that.

He narrows his eyes at me, hands going to his hips. "You're lying," he states bluntly. "You may have an inner lie detector, but I know you, Mary Anne. I know when you're lying to me, even though you almost never lie to me." He's right, and even if I do, he coaxes it out me. And those little white lies are always about if I'm alright or not. "You don't react to nothing like that, especially when Lydia has the same reaction to whatever you're denying to have seen. Now, why won't you tell me what you saw?!"

I swallow roughly, my throat dry as I answer, "Because if I say it then it'll convince me that I'm going out of my fucking mind!"

"Just tell me! I can help you!"

Tears sting the back of my eyes, shifting my weight onto one foot and then the other, spinning around towards my desk. "I woke up a few nights after I got out of the hospital at my desk, and I had written all of these things. Symbols, things in different languages, wolfsbane," I put emphasis on the last word as I search through my drawers, bending my back a bit. "I saw wolfsbane sticking out of the ice and it wasn't there after I finished screaming my head off, and I saw Peter Hale under the ice. He's dead!" My hands are trembling as I take out the stack of ten to fifteen pieces of loose paper, slamming the drawer shut, throwing them onto my bed. "Look at these and tell me that there isn't something else going on with me!"

My eyes are quickly watering but I don't let them fall, especially at the look on Stiles' face as he hesitantly shuffles over to my bed and picked up the papers. I shuffle backward, leaning into my desk heavily for support, running a hand through my curls in frustration. The sound of papers shuffling and rustling fills the silence of the room, blood rushing to my ears and palms growing sweaty.

"Mary Anne..." Stiles trails off, and I can feel his eyes on me but I don't look up from the floor. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was scared," I whisper, a tear sliding down my cheek and I don't wipe it away. Every time I'm on the verge of tears I stop them, and I can't anymore. The only time I've ever really cried ever since I came back home was when in the school parking lot after we were trapped in the school by Peter and when I hallucinated in the hospital, both of which Stiles witnessed. "I am scared. I don't know what or who I am anymore. I'm scared that what I am, other than a werewolf, is even more dangerous than that and I could potentially harm someone I love. Lydia, Allison, you." I squeeze my eyes shut as more tears fall from my eyes, unable to stop them, but I try, furiously swiping my palms under my eyes to avoid my make-up. "What if I kill someone?" I know I can be pretty violent and impulsive, but I can't fathom the notion of taking a person's life. I've never imagined killing someone, it goes against what I was taught.

A hand curls around my hip and another cups the back of my head, pulling me against his chest. "Mary Anne, breathe," Stiles whispers. "Just let it all out. It's not healthy keeping all of this in."

"I don't like crying," I whisper, hating how small I sound. "It makes me vulnerable, weak. And you shouldn't be talking about keeping feelings in; you barely talk about yours."

"There's nothing wrong with vulnerability, it doesn't make you weak. It shows that even after all you've been through, you can still feel your humanity and everything else. And I think you look beautiful when you cry," he whispers against my hair, pressing a kiss to the side of my head, blatantly ignoring my accusation of him hiding his feelings like I do.

However, it makes me crack. Balling my hands in his sweater, I just let the tears flow, wetting his t-shirt. All I care about is his arm winding around my waist to press me closer to him, his other hand rubbing over my hair and his lips lightly pressed against my head. His scent and warmth surround me as I remove my armor, something I've never done with anyone but certain members of my family. Not even Aurora. I don't care about being vulnerable anymore, or my makeup running, I don't care about anything except for being in his arms.

Everything crashes down on me from the time I've been here; getting attacked by Peter, screaming at the hospital and feeling nothing but pure fear, the hallucinations, and everything.

"What do you need me to do?" Stiles whispers, my sobs reducing to silent crying and little sniffles.

"Just hold me," I mumble.

My body sags against his, mentally and physically worn out, but I still cling him. I don't protest when he bends his knees a bit and slips his arm under my knees and lifts me up, my arm loosely winding around his neck as he tries not to jostle me around too much. He gently lays me down on the bed, shifting onto my side and he moves around the bed to lay down, facing me. I move forward, his arm going back to my waist as we lay close but with a bit of space between us.

"Please, try not to scare me like that again, alright?"

"I'll try."

He brushes some hair behind my ear, the back of his knuckles stroking my cheek. "You really scared the hell out of me, baby," he murmurs. "But, I wanna know how you feel."

I find no need to lie, not when my walls are down.

"I'm not one hundred percent fine, but I will be soon."