Chapter Text
It had been about half a year since the return of Stiles Stilinski had shaken the small town of Beacon County, Beacon Hills.
The brunette had indeed returned, but she was no longer the same girl that Scott and the pack once knew.
She no longer joked and smiled, her expression was hard, and she acted constantly on edge, as if she was expecting attack at any moment.
She was silent and wary, instead of making smart remarks and sarcastic comments and all in all managing to anger Derek every pack meeting. She practically radiated the smell of sadness and pain.
Not that they dared to mention it. They had learnt the hard way that Stiles was no longer afraid, unaware and defenceless, but rather alert, unpredictable and for some unknown reason fiercely strong and incredibly swift - especially for such a slight and petite human girl against werewolves no less.
That wasn't the only difference.
She was no longer clumsy, now swift and light on her feet. She had grown out her once cropped brown hair, and it now shone in slight waves down her back. She was now less pale than before she disappeared, her whiskey coloured eyes no longer shining with happiness, her face an unreadable expression most of the time. She had muscles, even though it didn't really show, and no longer dressed in her Stiles-esque logo shirts, plaid skirts, oversized hoodies and flannels. More t-shirts, jeans, sweats and jumpers.
She didn't trust them anymore.
And she didn't really remember who she was before, from what little they could gather.
She was returned to them after two years by the FBI. Stiles was 15 when she vanished into the night without a trace. The same night they took out Gerard Argent. Not that anyone really cared or paid attention as to where she was, except her father - the Sheriff.
Scott and the new formed pack tried to search for her. Not that they could do much, being a bunch of 15 year old teenagers.
If only they knew how much Stiles had managed to accomplish, when she was the exact same age.
She'd saved kids from testing. She had a hand in saving the world against WICKED.
Scott had expected that he wouldn't be easily forgiven by Stiles, should she ever return or be seen again for that matter, for abandoning his defenceless best friend and allowing her to be kidnapped.
What he hadn't expected was what had happened after they followed Stiles into the school building.
She was apparently ignoring the pack calling her name as she navigated her way - seemingly unconcerned through the shocked crowd of students - towards her locker, and they actually had to tap her on the shoulder to her her attention.
"Stiles!" he, Lydia and Allison had exclaimed, when the girl in question finally turned to face them. They knew that they were the only ones she would know, besides sourwolf.
However, much to their dismay, her expression became confused as she stared at them, plus the small gaggle of teens behind them. They thought it was the new members of the pack that had confused her. They had been sorely mistaken.
"I can't believe you're back!" Scott was nearly crying tears of joy at this point, seeing his best friend alive and well, even if she looked a little different. And then, the fatal mistake, he went to hug his best friend.
The next thing he knew, he was on his back on the hard, freezing and not to mention dirty, school floor, pain radiating all over his back, his wrist gripped tightly in Stiles left hand, the pack staring on in complete and utter shock.
She had flipped him so fast, he hadn't even registered it. And not to mention that he was a freaking werewolf! How in the hell did she manage that with such ease!
She glared at him hard, face contorted with anger, and maybe a little fear. She looked ready to fight him right there.
"My name is Thomasine." she snarled angrily at them, "And I don't know any of you. So don't touch me again."
She released his wrist, allowing it to drop, almost lifelessly onto his chest, and with one final glare, she stalked off in the direction of her first class, leaving the pack staring after her, mouths agape.
"What the hell just happened?" Lydia asked, her voice raising an octave higher than usual, as he lifted himself up off the floor with Allison's help, "What happened to Stiles?"
After that they were more cautious around Thomasine.
But she needed to be protected, and they were in a state of denial about her strength. It was probably because Scott wasn't expecting it, that's all... Right?
One week.
One week of trailing Stil-Thomasine, apparently unnoticed, anywhere and everywhere she went.
And they meant everywhere.
She went to the diner, Scott sat in a booth watching her from behind a menu. When she went to the toilets, the public ones that is, Lydia, Allison or Kira and sometimes even Malia followed her in and waited outside the stalls, then hid in one of the cubicles just before she emerged.
It may be a little excessive, just a little, but they wanted to keep the human safe in the world of the supernatural she had apparently forgotten. She didn't know she had to protect herself from those kinds of threats, which only made matters worse.
One week.
One entire week for them to get Thomasine to just slightly, trust them. Or at least know who they were and why they tried to hug her.
When they had all traipsed into her house on a rare day that the Sheriff was home early, they got an even greater shock - if was even possible. Thomasine had been waiting inside the door when they opened it, so silent that they hadn't even noticed her there - despite most of them having a heightened sense of smell and hearing.
What unnerved them, was what was gripped firmly and not even slightly shaking in her left hand.
A large, sharp silver knife, which seemed to have been taken from the kitchen block, glinted in her grip and was unwaveringly aimed at Scott's head, who had walked in first ahead of the others.
"All week you've been following me." she snapped, and they at least had the decency to look slightly guilty, most still staring in shock at the weapon aimed readily at it's target - Scott, "And now you've invaded my house. Why?"
"Stiles- Thomasine," Derek had begun, trying to act like the responsible adult that he definitely wasn't, and quickly corrected himself when the brunette sent a glare his way - not that he would ever admit it, but the new Stil- Thomasine- whoever she was, even managed to frighten him, "Put down the knife, you're going to get yourself hurt."
"I don't know who any of you even are," she snarled warily. OK, that comment stung, and Scott looked like he was about to cry, "You think you can just break into my house, and you expect me to trust you? Well I don't! I'm not stupid! So who are you- and why are you here?"
Lydia, somehow managing to hear the Sheriff walking around upstairs, thought quickly and called out to her once and still friend's father, "Sheriff! Some assistance please!" she yelled, and Thomasine spun, now aiming the knife towards her, more uncertainly now she understood they knew her father - whom she still didn't completely trust.
The Sheriff must have heard the urgency in Lydia's tone, because he quickly descended the stairs, coming face to face with the situation that had formed in the hallway of his house.
"Lydia? Kids, what's go-" Noah stopped mid sentence, seeing the slightly frightened and very upset look on most of the pack's faces and the murderous look on his daughter's, "Thomasine, put the knife down kiddo, they're your old friends from before you- you probably don't remember them anyhow." he looked pained just bringing up the kidnapping and decided to end his sentence midway, calling off his daughter's - what they all thought wasn't dangerous to them at all - attack.
Thomasine still looked skeptical, but she lowered the knife anyway, still not letting go of it though. She didn't want to see old friends who probably wanted to see the Stiles she no longer was, the people she desperately longed to see were far across the country, and she could only text them. She did smile slightly at the thought of the British blonde, and the dark haired Asian boy. But she didn't want the pack to take it the wrong way, so she, fought the smile off her face.
"I was friends with supernaturals? Seriously? Was my life ever normal at one point?" she muttered, mainly to herself - not that that stopped the werewolves and the werecoyote from overhearing her.
"You know?" Scott exclaimed, and all of them, including her father stared at her incredulously.
"It's not like you hide it very well. When you followed me, you were all constantly sniffing the air, and your eyes," she pointed accusingly straight at her old best friend, "flashed red at one point. So yeah, it wasn't too hard to figure out." The pack stared shocked at her sudden alertness and observance, "I'm honestly surprised that this whole town hasn't figured it out at this point. What are you anyway?"
"I'm a werewolf." Scott stated, flashing his red alpha eyes at her, by which she seemed unfazed.
And so it began.
Thomasine now knew what they all were and her basic history with them all before the kidnapping, but remained unbreakable when they pressed her worriedly for information as to where she had been, and what happened to her.
They decided to include her back in pack meetings like old times seeing as she began to trust them a bit (and had released the knife), and to train her to fight - at which point she rolled her eyes at all of them for reasons unknown - and to all in all keep her safe like the Sheriff asked, which seemed to piss off Thomasine even more seeing as their response to this was barely giving her any privacy at all.
One question remained constantly in the McCall/Hale pack's minds, a question they were determined to answer.
What happened to Stiles - or rather - Thomasine?