LOVERS ROCK
prologue
[ season one - episode one ]

A brilliant full moon hung above their heads, its beam illuminating their faces as they traced the constellations with their fingers, the witching hour upon them. She lay on his chest, at peace, as she had been since she met him, despite the great strides their relationship put them through, it could be called typical young love but it felt so much greater than that. She felt breathless when he was around, a stomach filled with a thousand butterflies every time their eyes met, every kiss felt like the first, she had been swooned, on cloud nine, and she never wanted to land.

Honey hadn't known love before him, but she doubted that anything could compare to the way he made her feel, he was the one who allowed her to understand all of the movies, the books, it all made sense how someone could be so irrevocably in love with a person, they didn't seem so silly anymore. She no longer scoffed at the idea of girls being broken when a man, or even a boy, left them because she knew that if that day ever came for her, she would be lost.

The past six months of her life had felt like a fever dream, ever since he had come into town she struggled to tell the difference between dreams and reality, they both felt the same around him. From the moment their eyes had met in the school halls she knew that everything had changed for her, that there was something about that boy that would change her, and she had been right, her life would never be the same because of him, in more ways than she knew of.

If you were to ask him, he would say the same. She wasn't just a young girl who'd fallen into his trap, a one-sided relationship, a love that was unrequited, he was just as crazy about her as she was him. He'd had girlfriends in the past, flimsy relationships here and there to kill the time, but that wasn't her. She was captivating, curious, and unlike the others, she hadn't fallen at his feet, she made him chase, and he loved the chase. How she would blush whenever he called her by her last name rather than her first, or how she would smile at him brightly with those eyes like a pool of honey, making it clear why she'd been named after the delicious treat. She was a tease, playing him at his own game, making him work for the reward, and oh how he loved that reward now he had it. If anyone had fallen at the feet of the other, it was him at her feet.

They could have stayed there all night had they been given the chance, but the girl would have to return home soon to meet her curfew, she couldn't let her parents find out who she was really with tonight, who she came out to meet every other night until late hours of the night because it certainly wasn't the girl friends she told them it was. Those girls didn't exist, she didn't have girl friends, at least not the kind that she could spend hours of the nights with. Those hours were all reserved for him, he was only ever a call away, he would drop everything to meet her in the park, if not at her bedroom window, sneaking in until she had fallen asleep in the comfort of his arms.

"I need to go soon." The brunette girl muttered slightly, looking up at him with a soft smile.

"Or you could be late for your curfew." He suggested with a raised brow. "Just this once?"

As much as she would have loved to say in his arms all night, she shook her head, laughing it off. There wasn't a single night the two of them met in this park that he didn't suggest that she stay a little longer so the two of them could lay like this until the sun come up, one day, they believed they would be able to it without worries, but tonight, wasn't that night. He knew that, but he still had to ask. Any other night she would have been tempted to break curfew, it never took much to convince her to break the rules, not when he was involved, but tonight she knew it wouldn't be a wise decision. Her mother had already begged her to stay in with her, to have one of their special girl's nights that they'd been having for as long as Honey could remember, yet she'd still come to see him, blowing off her mother, something that had been happening a lot lately.

Honey sat up, tossing his shirt onto his chest before grabbing her own from beside her, about to pull it over her head until she was pulled back down, lying on the grass as he towered on top of her, looking down at her with a smile, his arms resting either side of her head.

"Ten more minutes?" He proposed with that charming smile that she couldn't resist, she'd tried.

"Five." Honey bargained.

He looked down at her, the chest that she'd failed to cover up before he'd pulled her back down onto the grass, the chest he had already left a trail of kisses on just half an hour ago, with a smirk he looked up at those pools of honey-colored eyes, a tilt of the head. "I can work with that."

Twenty minutes had passed before the pair managed to pull themselves away from one another, ending up in the same position with their backs laying on the trimmed grass, looking up at a full moon above them. This time, Honey knew that she couldn't stay, it was already past her curfew, her parents were going to be furious. After quickly pulling her shirt over her head, not giving him the chance to stall her again, Honey looked at her phone, five missed calls from her father. He'd peered over her shoulder, looking at the phone before both of them shot up, knowing she was a dead girl walking if she didn't get home soon with a good reason for her to be late.

As the two rushed towards the main entrance of the park, Honey called her dad repeatedly as she repeatedly muttered a prayer to herself that not only would he pick up, but that she would make it through the night. Only when her father had picked up, she wished he never had.

After speeding across town the brunette girl ran into the hospital, covered in grass stains and dirt that she hadn't even noticed, she was in too much of a panic, her tears stinging her eyes as she tried to navigate her way through the halls, her breaths getting the best of her as she started to reach a state of hyperventilation. A passing nurse rushed to the girl's aid, after barely managing to spit out the words, the nurse guided her to the place she needed to go, walking her there until Honey saw her father standing surrounded by deputies, his head in his hands.

On the off chance he looked up, he saw his daughter standing there, looking straight past him as if he wasn't even there, her eyes were glued to something behind him, a window looking into the hospital room where a body lay, covered in a white sheet. And just like that, she knew. Her knees fell weak as she dropped to the floor with a painful sob, her father just quick enough to reach her before she hit the tiled floor. She didn't need to ask, there was no need, she could feel it, she was gone. Her mother was gone, for reasons that she didn't understand, perhaps she never would, it didn't matter right now, because her mother was dead.

𝐣𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟏

Lousiana air filled the girl's lungs as she stared out of the rolled-down window of her dad's SUV, the man himself was sitting beside her, eyes on the road, embracing their last few moments of silence in each other's company, at least for a few weeks until he joined her in their new town of Beacon Hills. The two spent the drive to the airport recalling the years they'd spent here, calling it their home, even if her father had spent years of his life in Beacon Hills where he'd met his late wife, this was still the place that he referred to as his home. Honey believed the move was Jude's attempt at being close to his wife again, to keep the memory of Emily alive in his mind now that she was gone. It was still raw, personally, she felt it was too soon for them to be figuring out how to keep the memory of her alive. It had only been two months.

Her mother would have hated the idea of them moving to Beacon Hills, especially on her behalf, she had made a point of running from that place as soon as she knew she was pregnant with her daughter, refusing to let her daughter live the same life she had. Honey didn't quite know what it was about Beacon Hills that made her hate it so much, her mother never spoke of her past, but whatever had happened in that town, it was enough for her to want to stay far away from it. She assumed her father knew the reason why, but he remained insistent on the move, giving her the whole fresh start, a new chapter lecture, and other grief-fueled crap.

It was an abrupt change for them both, but especially for Honey. She'd had no idea that her dad was even considering a move, let alone that he had planned it entirely, down to every fine detail of how she would move first ready for the beginning of school, and him a few weeks later when the house was officially sold because he had already listed it without asking her how she would feel about moving. Jude had never been great at talking, demanding? He was a master at it, but he was never one for talking things through, they had never even spoken about Emily's death. It was a subject he avoided like the plague.

His version of announcing the move had been putting her plane ticket inside her Christmas card, just two weeks before he expected her to pack up her life and move across the country. She had suggested waiting, that she would move when he did, but her arguments failed, he wasn't going to let her miss even more time at school, she was already exchanging so late in the year. And on top of that, she was already at risk of being held back a year, after everything that had happened her grades had already begun to plummet. She needed all the time at school she could get.

Honey had to admit, the move wasn't entirely bad, there were a few things she'd be more than happy to leave behind, the past two months of her life to be precise. When not only had she lost her mother, but her first love too, all in the span of 24-hours. She could still remember those 24 hours vividly, they haunted her, they'd left a permanent imprint on her mind. The kind of things her mother told her she felt about Beacon Hills. Maybe Emily's Beacon Hills was her Metairie.

The girl slouched in her seat, closing her eyes, remembering that night in all of its horrible glory.

𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎

By the time the two Carters stumbled through the front door the sun had been and gone, they'd spent all night and day at the hospital, both being questioned about Emily's death, why she may have felt the need to do what she had done to herself. But Honey couldn't even begin to fathom why, why her mother would do it, why she would leave her daughter and husband. Honey didn't even know that her mother was ever unhappy with her life, she seemed happy, there wasn't ever a day when she didn't have a bright smile on her face. She guessed it was true what people said about the prettiest smiles hiding the biggest secrets.

Honey stumbled up the staircase, wiping her tears on the sleeve of her blue sweatshirt that still had the grass and dirt stains all over them, though too much had happened for it to matter now, there was nothing her father could do to make her feel more punished than she already did. The pictures hanging on the wall, leading upstairs haunted her, she could no longer look at them and miss her mother the same way that she used to when Emily was on a business trip, just a phone call away whenever she needed motherly advice. Now when she missed her mother, she would have to suffer the pain of only being able to hear her voice in old videos, only able to see her face in pictures, there would be no comfort in knowing that she would come home in a few days with a souvenir from wherever her trip had taken her this time, she was never coming back.

The brunette girl averted her gaze, looking at the top of the stairs where Bee waited for her, running to and fro from her bedroom door with excitement that she used to be able to match, but tonight it felt as though every emotion she could feel had been drained from her, all but sadness. She tried to tell the golden retriever that it wasn't the kind of night for running around and playing like the two of them normally did. Usually, Bee seemed to understand, he would settle down and wait at her bedroom door calmly until she let him in, then he would claim his place on the bed, but now, it seemed nothing would calm him. Honey looked at his excited face once again, watching as he ran another lap of the corridor from her room to the top of the stairs, and then she realized. Bee only ever acted like this under one circumstance- when he was here.

Suddenly, she began walking up the stairs quicker than she had before, getting to her bedroom door that the golden retriever eagerly scratched against, desperate to be let in. Even though she had a feeling that he was waiting inside, it took a second for Honey to be able to open the door. She took a deep breath before she was willing to face a room where she had shared many of her memories with her mother, where the two of them spent their girls' nights when her father was the one away on business, the two never went together, they made sure that she never had to be at home alone for longer than a day. They still saw her as a little girl incapable of looking out for herself, of being alone.

Honey shook off the thought, opening her bedroom door, watching as Bee in raced ahead of her to the person she expected to be sat waiting for her, and as she flicked on the light, her suspicion had been confirmed, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, Bee already laying on his lap. He had sat there for a couple of hours waiting for her to come home, he had known where she had been, those hours of waiting had given him the time to think about what he was going to do, how he'd do it after what had just happened to her. He had climbed through the window as he usually did, but from the moment their eyes met she knew something was different about this time, not just because of how she felt, but there was something about him too.

This wasn't their usual meeting when her stomach would be filled with butterflies like it was just last night, when all he would have to do is flash his notorious smirk and she would melt, Honey rarely saw him without that smirk, but this was one of the times when it was missing.

Honey took the seat beside him the two of them sitting in silence for a moment, somehow she'd known what to say, she knew why he was here, she wasn't sure how she'd known it, but she did. "Your leaving, aren't you?" Her voice mumbled, refusing to even look at him, instead, at the blue nail polish she picked off of her fingernails.

"Carter-"

"Aren't you?" She repeated, turning to look at him with tearful eyes. He didn't have to answer or do anything at all, she already knew, but he nodded as he cupped her face in his hand. "When?"

"Tonight." He muttered, regretting the word as soon as it had left his mouth. "Car, you know if I had a choice in this I'd stay. But-"

"But you don't." She deadpanned. "You never do. I know, I've heard it all before."

After that, it was clear what she wanted, at least what she wanted on the surface, for him to get it over with and leave her so that she could get back to the plans she had for the night before she'd known he was here. To wallow in the darkness asking herself what she could have done in order to deserve losing her mother at sixteen years old, when a girl needed her mother most, to guide her through all of the heartbreak and difficulties of being young. Now she really could have used that help from her mother, she didn't know how to handle heartbreak, and it had just broken for the second time in the space of a day.

He said his goodbyes, giving her one last kiss on the forehead before climbing back through the window, taking the heart that he had helped to shatter with him, he told her how it was going to be for the best, whether she believed it or not, that she was better off without him in her life. Of course, she denied it, refusing to believe that something that could make her feel so bad could be a good thing, the right thing, maybe, in the long run, he would be right.

For a while, the brunette remained at the end of the bed, Bee laying across her lap while she kept her eyes on a single spot of her bedroom wall, a feeling of numbness inside of her, not another tear dropping from her eye, too many had been shed, now, she'd run out. She could still hear a loud sob echoing in her ears, her own sob. All she could think about was how her mother asked her to stay home last night, begged her, now she knew why her mother wanted it so badly, she'd wanted nothing more than to spend her last night with her daughter. But she'd been stubborn, selfish, and refused, choosing to go out and meet him instead. Because at that moment, it had seemed like something more worthwhile of her time, if she'd known by the end of the night her mother would be gone, she would have made the most of her last moments with her.

𝐣𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟏

That seemed to be the only benefit of moving to California that she could find, she would be far from him and any memories she shared with him, giving herself the chance to finally heal, there would be no reason to think of him or their relationship again. She couldn't bear to even speak his name, and certainly not around her father, he'd warned her about him, that he wasn't a fan of the boy, that he would only hurt her, how he was bad news. He didn't know how right he was.

Jude looked over at his daughter as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, trying to shake off the thought of him, he knew what she was doing, she had the same look on her face that her mother used to get when she thought of something that she would have rathered not think about for her mother it was usually her past in Beacon Hills, but he wasn't sure what it was for his daughter.

The two of them hadn't spoken much since getting in the car, there had been no need for soppy goodbyes, it would only be a few weeks until he saw her again, in the meantime, she would stay with his good friend, the Sheriff of Beacon Hills. He was one of the first people he had told about the move, before even telling his daughter, it was the Sheriff who'd helped finalize it, every final detail that they needed to complete the move. He'd convinced him that his daughter would love Beacon Hills, how she could make friends with his son, which had reminded him.

"Oh, by the way," Jude spoke, his daughter turning to him with a furrowed brow, she knew that tone he was using, it was the you're not going to like what I'm about to say tone, he used it a lot more than he should have needed to. He'd used that tone when he gave her the plane ticket to California, but it couldn't get any worse than that. "The Sheriff has to work so he can't pick you up from the airport. So his son isn't going to instead, that way you don't have to get a cab."

Honey rolled her eyes at the man. "Really, Dad? You got me a babysitter."

Jude scoffed. "He's not a babysitter. He's just... Someone to look after you until I get there." The man explained, turning back to his daughter who narrowed her eyes at him. "I just described a babysitter, didn't I?"

Honey nodded, he had practically provided her a dictionary definition of a babysitter. She knew that she would have the Sheriff looking out for her, both while she stayed with him until her dad came into town, and probably after that too, but his son being a babysitter was never part of the discussion. Honestly, she had forgotten the Sheriff even had a son, she couldn't remember when she had last saw the man, but she knew that she was only young, they lived much too far apart for regular visits to one another. But whether the two men spoke or not, that didn't change that the Sheriff was a good friend of his, or that he'd been named as her godfather.

The remainder of their ride to the airport consisted of all the boundaries the man set for her, all of the things that she wasn't allowed to do, before and after he arrived, most of them involving her causing trouble, which she wasn't known to do, but from what he'd heard about the Sheriff's son he wouldn't be surprised if that changed. Maybe Honey wasn't trouble herself, but she sure did attract a lot of it wherever she went. As any daughter would, she reassured her father that he had nothing to worry about, Honey was sure that they wouldn't have the same problems they'd run into in Lousiana, she couldn't be unlucky enough to go through that twice.

After a four-hour flight Honey stepped off of the plane into torrential rain, a vast difference from all of the bright winter sun she'd managed to soak up during her last few hours in Lousiana, the kind of weather she was dressed for. Everyone else on her flight seemed prepared for the rain in California with their umbrellas and jackets, both of which, Honey didn't have. She'd come in her cream cardigan, a yellow tank top and jeans, so naturally, she was freezing when she stepped on the platform. But she would never admit it, not when her dad had told her to wear something a little warmer, when she had insisted that she would be fine in what she was wearing. Admitting to her dad that he was right was something that she couldn't do, a trait she got from her mother.

Everyone in the airport seemed to stare at her, wondering if she'd caught the wrong flight, since it looked like she was dressed to be in Spain, not California, but Honey tried not to focus on that, instead she put her mind on navigating her way through the airport, looking for baggage claim. It wasn't until Honey stood at the top of the escalator, staring down at the masses of people who were collecting their luggage that she realized the fault in her father's plan. She had no idea who she was looking for, or even his name, he had been too busy lecturing her on good behaviour to tell her the details of the Sheriff's son.

"Shit." The blonde muttered to herself, pulling out her phone in a flustered panic, prepared to call her father and ask who the hell she was supposed to be looking for, still stunned that it had never crossed the man's mind to tell her who she would be living with for a few days, who her so called babysitter would be. The call had only lasted a single ring before it had cut out, a knitted brow when she wondered if her father had cut her off, instead, she had no signal, she was left to fend for herself and hope that she wouldn't be kidnapped by a strange European.

Rather than standing idly by waiting for that to happen, or until she and the Sheriff's son were the two only people left in baggage claim, Honey chose what seemed like the smartest choice of finding her luggage and getting outside as soon as possible so she could call her father. Maybe it was hopeful considering her father was supposed to be at a business meeting this afternoon but she hadn't been left any other choices, the Sheriff's number was just another thing her dad had forgotten about. For a man who ran his own business, he seriously lacked organization, maybe it was her mother's role in their business, something he hadn't quite figured out yet.

As Honey reached for her suitcase another hand reached for the same one, both of them harshly grabbing the handle to lug it off of the conveyor belt.

"That's mine," The boy in front of her insisted as he stood tall with his plaid shirt and a buzzcut, his grip on the suitase tight as he looked down at the blonde, breaking the height distance that stood between them, but Honey wasn't going to let a height difference intimidate her.

"No, I think you'll find it's mine." She objected as she fiddled to find the yellow label she knew she'd put on the handle purposely to avoid situations like this. "See. H. Carter. That's me."

He pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket, the same name scribbled on it, she was the girl he was supposed to be looking for, but she looked nothing like the picture his father showed him last night, granted, it was a couple years old, but if the girl in front of him was that same girl she had certainly changed over the past few years of her life.

"Your Jude's daughter?"

Only with the mention of her father's name did she know that she wasn't dealing with a stranger trying to steal her luggage, but the boy she was supposed to look out for, which made her feel a slight sense of relief, she wasn't sure if her first day in Beacon Hills was appropriate to get into a fight, especially not in an airport. "Yeah. And I'm guessing your the Sheriff's son."

"Stiles." He nodded, holding out his hand.

The blonde took his hand with a smile. "Honey."

"Your name's Honey?" He asked with a furrowed brow, to which she nodded, unable to see why that seemed so confusing to him, it seemed like a simple name, easier to understand than Stiles, what kind of name was that for a child? "You mean like "Honey" as in what Winnie the Pooh eats honey? That kind of honey?"

"How many kinds of honey do you know?" She asked him sarcastically. "Yes, that kind of honey, Stiles. I'm named after Winnie the Pooh's breakfast."

·❥·

Honey followed behind Stiles into the Sheriff's Department, both drenched from the downpour of heavy rain outside, bordering on a storm. Even though Stiles had given the blonde one of his spare jackets from the Jeep, the two had managed to become even more soddened by the walk from the car to the main entrance of the station. The simple noise of the door opening had been enough to turn everyone's attention towards them, eyes beginning to narrow at the blonde girl, wondering who she was, she certainly wasn't someone they recognized, she was new in town. A million questioned flooded through the minds of those who stared at the girl, Stiles knew that it was going to be like this, Beacon Hills never seemed to react well to new people, rumours would always surround them, people would dig for answers that weren't necessary, and after he'd just found out during the car ride that her mother died a few months ago, the last thing she'd need is questions about her life.

He was surprised how open she had been about her mother, how easily she had managed to talk about it when it had happened so recently, he still struggled years after his own mother's death, the thought alone made him feel uneasy. She had assumed that Stiles would have already knew of her mother's death, that perhaps his father would have told him about it with a warning to try and not mention mother's, it wasn't until she saw the shock and pity on his face that she knew it was something he knew nothing about. Otherwise she wouldn't have blurted it out so plainly. If she had known that his own mother had died, she wouldn't of spoken about it at all.

Until their conversation in the car, she didn't realise just how out of touch she had been with her family. The Stilinski's were one of her father's closest family friends, her father and the Sheriff spoke all of the time, yet she knew nothing about them, just like she had known nothing of how unhappy her mother must have been with her life. She had been so consumed in her own life, or him, that she had paid no attention to anyone else, leaving her oblivious.

Even Stiles was beginning to feel the pressures of the stares as they walked through to his dad's office, but the girl following him kept her head down, ignoring them all, too busy thinking about their conversation in the car, how she needed to make more of an attempt to talk to her father so that she didn't feel like this again, like she knew nothing about the part of his life that wasn't her.

Stiles carefully knocked onto the doors of his dad's office conscious that he may not be the only one inside until he heard a muffled shout inviting them in, as Stiles opened the door he watched as his father attempted to hide a box of curly fries underneath his desk, not expecting it to be his son at the door.

"What you got there, Dad?" Stiles asked with folded arms, leading against the door while Honey stood beside him, amused by the exchange. They reminded her of her and her own father, how it often seemed that the roles were reversed, that the children had to take the role of the parent at times. Her father could be a serious man, as she expected the Sheriff could be, but sometimes it seemed like they needed some assistance in maintaining their lives.

Honey often found herself lecturing her father to eat right, to have some time to himself when he had been out on too many business meetings, or even being around her too much, she was a girl who needed space of her own, no matter how much she loved her father, the man could be just a little smothering sometimes. He needed that encouragement to be alone and embrace his life as a man with a teenage daughter who didn't need constant supervision.

"Uh... Nothing." The Sheriff mumbled, a mouth full of food as he stood up from his desk, hoping that for once his son would let this one slide as he brushed himself off, but that wasn't likely. "I thought you were supposed to be picking up Jude's daughter from the airport. Please don't tell me you forgot, I don't want to be the one answering to him if he finds out I left Honey stranded."

Stiles moved aside allowing Honey to come into the man's line of sight, a nervous smile across her face as she looked at the man completely unsure how he was going to react to her, it wasn't as if they had the kind of relationship that he had with her father, they were practically strangers. Which was why she was so surprised when the man wrapped her up in a tight hug, Stiles hadn't expected it either as he stood with wide eyes, watching as his father almost squeezed her half to death, as if they were a father and daughter who had been separated for years. Honey looked at Stiles over the man's shoulder, wondering if this was normal for the man to do, but he shrugged, he never saw his father like this with anyone, but then, he had never known him talk of anyone the way his father talked of Jude and Emily as if the two of them could do no wrong.

Put the two of them together, and you got Honey, of course he was going to adore her. She was the product of his two best friends. "God, you look just like Emily." Noah muttered as he pulled away from their hug, taking a closer look at the girl in front of him as she smiled proudly. "How was your flight? How's your dad? Stiles didn't annoy you too much, right?"

"Hey!" Stiles shouted defensively.

"Everything was fine," Honey reassured the man. "Including Stiles, even if he has given me some stupid nickname that I don't think I'm ever going to be able to get rid of."

Stiles nodded proudly as he thought about his new nickname for the girl that he declared for her on the way over, Winnie, to him it wasn't too far from her actual name, even she had joked that it was what she was named after, she'd asked for it.

For hours the two teenagers had sat in the man's office, distracting him from his work, as well as the stash of curly fries in his desk, the three of them getting to know one another, making it feel like Honey had lived here her entire life, not a few hours. After the car ride with Stiles, hearing all of the things about him and his father she thought it would feel as though she would be living in a house with two strangers, but she was already beginning to feel at home in Beacon Hills, like it had just been a short holiday in Lousiana but now she was back where she belonged. With all of the hatred her mother had shown for this town she never thought it would feel like home in such a short amount of time. The Stilinski's were great people, just like her father had said.

By the time the three of them felt caught up enough on each other's lives, the Sheriff's shift was over, allowing them to return home together, Noah had declared that the three of them would be getting takeout tonight, a special treat to welcome Honey into their home, he knew that his son wouldn't be able to argue with that, telling him that they had to eat healthily, not when the blonde's arrival was an occasion to be celebrated.

It was drawing on midnight when Honey found herself about to curl up in bed, trying to get a good night's sleep before she started at her new high school tomorrow, the thing that she was beginning to dread the most about her move. She knew nothing about being the new girl. She had grown up with all of the people in her old school, she already knew everything she needed to about them. But here, she knew nothing about the people around her, not unless they were one of the Stilinski's. She felt some comfort in knowing she had Stiles, but he had friends of his own, he wouldn't want her hanging around him. He had already talked about Scott McCall, he referred to him as more so of a brother than a best friend, now that she thought about it, Stiles hadn't talked about any other friends of his.

All Honey knew about being the new girl in school was what she had seen in the movies, Mean Girls mostly, and if her new school was anything like that, it would only be a week before she'd find herself begging her father to let her move back to Lousiana. She couldn't deal with all of the drama that popular girls had surrounding them, she'd had more than enough drama in her life, and she had reached her limit. She couldn't handle the fakeness, the backstabbing, the rumors. Honey had already seen how people at the station had reacted to her, staring at her, whispering, wondering what she was about, she dreaded what the teenagers of Beacon Hills were like if the adults lacked that much discretion.

The blonde was just about to pull her shirt over her head when the door knocked, she quickly pulled it back down as she told them to come in, unsure whether she was going to be met with Noah or Stiles, frankly, it surprised her the two of them were still awake, she thought that she was the only one with such a terrible sleep schedule.

"Hey, Winnie." Stiles greeted her teasingly as he walked into the room, spinning a key around his index finger as she rolled her eyes at him. "My dad forgot to give you this earlier, it's your key to the house." He explained as he handed it to her, a single keyring attached to it that Honey felt a need to look at, a small smile growing across the girl's face. It was a small picture of four people, from what she could tell, they were in their early twenties, arms wrapped around one another, a large smile across each of their faces. She had immediately recognized her own parents, and she had quickly put together that the other couple was Stiles's parents.

Honey tried not to focus on it for too long, she had spent the past two months avoiding looking at old pictures of her mom, not quite prepared to enter that stage of her grief, instead, her eyes looked back over to Stiles as he stood in the doorway, his shoes and coat on as if he was about to head out at this time of the night.

"Are you going somewhere?" She asked curiously.

"Yeah." He nodded. "I'm going to pick up Scott. We're going body hunting."

"Body hunting?" Honey repeated with a furrowed brow, wondering if that was some kind of term for a game of manhunt that only California used. The boy nodded with a slight hum. "What kind of body?" She pondered again with growing interest.

"A dead one." Stiles deadpanned. "I was going to ask if you wanted to come but you seem like the kind of girl who wouldn't want to get dirty out in the woods."

Honey stood up with folded arms, the boy taking a step back, slightly scared that she was going to hit him for his comment. But instead, she grabbed a pair of old converse from the floor and a jacket, prepared to join him in the woods. If there was anything she wasn't it was what he'd just described. She wasn't afraid to get her hands a little dirty sometimes, even though the idea of a dead body didn't particularly thrill her, she wasn't going to let Stiles think of her as a wimp. Even if that meant a lifetime of nightmares.