After spending the rest of the night hanging out with Brett, the two of them had driven to the nearest lookout and talked about Owen and Liam while eating the doughnuts Trudy had brought them when they were leaving. Stiles hadn't been mad when she woke him up at 6:30 that morning after getting home, later on explaining it was because she looked so much more relaxed and calm than she had when she'd left the house.

She looked emotionally lighter.

She'd spent the rest of her day studying for her exams that were taking place the next week, but by the time the sun was beginning to set her eyes ached and her head hurt from trying to understand physics. After sitting there and staring at it for another fifteen minutes, she gave up.

Without a word, she barged right into Stiles' room — ignored the way his head popped up from behind what almost looked like a castle of cardboard boxes — and grabbed the Jeep keys before leaving again. "You literally don't have your license!" He called after her.

She pressed the panic button so it honked repeatedly, and snickered to herself when she heard him shriek and drop several things. She stopped the noise and slid into the passenger seat, and sighed.

In the keep was the only quiet place she could think of right off the bat, but Katherine knew that it would never feel the same without Stiles in it. Things wouldn't be the same without him, and as happy as she was that he'd gotten into the FBI training program, she was going to miss him a whole lot more than she ever would admit to.

With her arms folded over her chest she stared out the windshield, lips pursing. Truthfully, all she wanted to do was call Liam to come over and talk her through the fact that she hated the idea of her brother leaving.

But he was with Hayden.

As the school year had wrapped up and exam prep was starting, she had sat them both down and explained that her and her sister were both leaving beacon hills. Katherine had understood, after taking the time to listen to her reasoning — she wanted to keep her sister safe and she couldn't do that here — but she knew full well that Liam still felt guilty for the way he'd treated her.

The three of them had talked about it, all of them admitting they were unbelievably stupid teenagers for letting things play out the way that they had. But she had agreed to let Liam and Hayden have a more in-depth conversation by themselves, as they both did deserve it.

So there she sat, in the passenger seat of the Jeep in the midst of a existential crisis, not knowing what the hell she was supposed to do to calm herself down.

Absentmindedly she switched on the Police Scanner and immediayelt felt her heart lurch as one of the officers reported a vehicle with no permit sitting stationary in the parking lot across the street from the grocery store a five minute walk from her house. That wasn't abnormal, as there was the occasional person living out of their car that passed through Beacon Hills, but it was the license plate that caught her attention.

Theo's truck.

Immediately, she flipped the scanner off and sat in silence.

She knew that Liam had brought him back to help deal with the Hunt, but she hadn't actually seen him since being back. But he had explained that he'd saved his life in the hospital and had used himself as bait for the Hunters in order for Liam to escape, which she knew the old Theo would never had done.

Whatever he had gone through had changed him, and she didn't know how he was going to handle it. Chances are, if he was living out of his truck, things couldn't be going the greatest for him.

Katherine thought about it briefly, after a split second decision, she went back into the house, tossed the keys onto her brothers bed, grabbed twenty dollars from her wallet and left the house again. Her phone was in her pocket so she didn't bother yelling that she was going out, just texted the family group chat that consisted of her Dad, Stiles, Melissa, Scott and herself.

Considering the three of them were almost always together, they figured that including both parents was a safe bet.

She jogged down street after street, crossed over while flipping off the occasional driver for not paying attention considering it was nearly dark out before finally reaching the grocery store, and stopped in front of the parking lot. Deputy Kainer was standing with his light flashing in the drivers seat window of a grey pick up, and Katherine could remember everything that had happened the one time she'd been inside it.

Without even hesitating she jogged over to them, forcing a smile onto her face. "Hey, Kainer," she beamed, stopping right beside him. "Theo was just waiting for me and I took longer that I thought I would, so I told him he could get some rest while he waited."

She knew the Deputy didn't believe her in the slightest, but left anyway.

After watching him drive off, she turned to the window to see Theo staring at her in surprise. His hair was white a bit longer than it had been the last time she'd seen him, but otherwise he looked pretty much the same. Just more cautious, and sad. "Katherine?" He asked quietly, brows scrunched, though he was no longer squinting.

"You're fucking stupid," she rolled her eyes at him, then held up a finger. "Wait here or I swear to god I'll break your nose."

She didn't give him a chance to respond, just jogged into the grocery store and let the doors close behind her. When she was inside she grabbed one of the yellow baskets that never sat nicely on your arm and grabbed three pre-packaged sandwiches, a bottle of water, a bottle of Doctor pepper, a box of strawberry pop tarts, and mint gum from the till.

Then she paid for it and went back outside and knocked on the passenger seat window, growing deeply as she watched him flinch at the noise. But he opened the door for her anyway, and she sat down. Wordlessly she dropped one of the sandwiches and the water bottle into his laugh, and played candy crush on her phone while he ate it like he hadn't had a proper meal in days.

He probably hadn't.

When she was sure he wasn't going to throw it back up, she gave him the second one, which took him a little longer to eat. After he'd eaten it all, and had drank the majority of the water, she handed him the gum packet. "Your breath smells like ass," she explained bluntly, and watched as he laughed at it before popping two pieces into his mouth and chewing.

"What're you doing here?" He asked curiously after a little bit.

Wordlessly, she slapped the back of his head as hard as she could, knowing it wouldn't do any permanent damage. "That's for fucking us all over," she warned him, eyes narrowed. Then she slouched into the seat, and awkwardly patted his arm. "And that's for...that's for being decent enough to help me when I was puking in Eichen's basement."

"You're a kid," he shrugged, avoiding eye contact. "You shouldn't have to deal with this shit."

"But I do, and I will for the rest of my life now because I can't leave everyone to handle it on their own." Then Katherine cleared her throat and popped a piece of gum into her own mouth. "I can't imagine what you went though in Hell...the underworld...Tartarus...wherever the fuck you went, but...do you need anything from me right now? Can I do anything?"

They sat in silence for a little bit as he thought about it, and she grew bored and wound up opening the pop tarts. He took one when she held the box out to him, and spat his gum out before hand. "Nothing I deserve," he answered after picking at the pop tart on his hand.

"You don't have to deserve help do need it, you dumb fuck," she rolled her eyes. "So tell me what you need and I'll find away to get it to you...legally, of course."

"Why are you helping me?" He huffed uneasily, seeming to throw up a fragile emotional wall to protect himself.

Katherine stared at him, knowing it should've been obvious. "Because you helped us when it would've killed you, and at the start of the year you never would've even considered it. You've changed, Theo, even if it's just a little bit," she murmured softly. "And you deserve to be treated like you have. So tell me what you need."

He didn't say anything for a while, just kept picking pieces of the pop tart off and eating them slowly, then sighed. "Just...this, I guess. If you could sit here for a bit..."

"Of course I can do that," she promised evenly, then grabbed her phone. "I hope you're okay with Lizzo because I really need to feel like a bad bitch right now."

He just sighed but didn't complain.

A/N: for those of you who wanted to see a friendship with Kat and Theo, you're welcome for this because it's gonna be the start of something I hope is gonna be beautiful.