𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄

𝘙𝘈𝘋𝘐𝘖 𝘚𝘐𝘓𝘌𝘕𝘊𝘌

The next morning, Meilani flitted around her room as she tried to get all her things together for school. Her mind bounced around a million different thoughts, all of them bouncing around her head like it was a pinball machine. She was surprised her eyes didn't light up every time another idea bounced around, alerting her that she got more points in the game. However, Meilani didn't think she was getting any points.

Throughout the night, Meilani and Lydia stayed up texting each other about what they could do about Stiles. There was only so much either girl could come up with before they realized it might be another dead end. Neither girl wanted to go down a road that would just be them wasting their time so they both agreed to meet up again at lunch that next day to try and figure out more ways to get a relic from Stiles and, hopefully, bring him back.

Meilani paused in her current task when she could practically hear Isaac's thoughts outside her door and she sighed, dropping her bag onto her bed and turning towards the door just as it opened. A slight tense air had drifted around the couple ever since she'd realized that Stiles might have been a boy she loved. That was enough to drive any wedge between any couple and Meilani knew the inevitable was going to happen. She just needed more time so she didn't hurt Isaac. "I can hear your thoughts, you know."

Isaac's nose scrunched up at her words and rubbed at his face with the sleeve of his black cardigan, a light blue scarf draped around his neck even though they lived in California and it was in the 70s that week. The thought alone brought another flash of something dealing with Stiles to enter her mind and she squeezed her eyes shut momentarily.

Stiles pointed at Isaac and glanced to his girlfriend desperately. "Okay, seriously, what is the point of him him? Seriously, babe, I mean, what is his purpose? Aside from the persistent negativity and the scarf?" He remarked, gesturing to Isaac's combination of a gray jacket and dark blue knit scarf. "What's up with the scarf anyway, dude? It's, like, sixty-five degrees outside."

Meilani sighed and ran a hand down her face, not really wanting to listen the two boys fight. "Stiles, please."

"Look, maybe I'm asking a question no one here wants to ask," Isaac countered, not even flinching at Stiles' torments.

"Oh, yeah . . . and what's that? How you're not sweating in that get up? Seriously, I'm sweating just looking at you."

"I hate that you can read my mind sometimes," Isaac mumbled, snapping Meilani out of another random suppressed memory. His blue eyes were dimmer than usual and the light bags under his eyes showed he'd been sleeping just as horribly as Meilani had been. "However, I also love that I can read your mind sometimes. I know what you've been thinking about, Lani."

Meilani licked her lips and fiddled with the strings of her lacrosse hoodie, shifting on her red Converse covered feet. She hated that Isaac had a vague idea of the thoughts that ran through her head and she scolded herself mentally for not blocking them out as well as she thought she had been. "Isaac — "

Isaac held his hand up, but his face didn't hold any malicious intent towards her. It was soft with sadness and she could practically feel his heart breaking through their mate bond, but she didn't detect a single ounce of resentment in him. It was almost like he had come to terms with everything already. That . . . or he was slowly starting to believe Stiles was real, regardless of his statements from the night before. "Lans, look — after that night in the woods with Lydia and Malia, I knew things would be different. I knew that you were drifting away. Hell, I could feel you drifting away from me. I know that you've been thinking about the best way to do what I'm about to do, but the truth is none of it is easy. I love you, Meilani Marie McCall, and that'll never change. However, your heart isn't here with me. It's with Stiles, wherever he is  and if he even exists."

Meilani's frown deepened as Isaac grew closer to her with every word, the door shutting quietly behind Isaac to give them some privacy. Even though Scott was downstairs eating his breakfast and Melissa had already left that morning for work. Her heart ached heavily as Isaac continued on and she felt incredibly guilty that he even had to be the one to do what she was supposed to be doing. 

"I don't know what's going to happen with Stiles. If he'll ever come back, if he even exists, but I want you to know I'm always going to be here for you. You're my alpha and for however long it truly was, you were mine. But . . . your heart clearly belongs to someone that isn't me and we're in some kind of weird limbo. So . . . I just wanted to tell you that it hurts right now, but I'm not going anywhere. We can still be best friends and roommates and maybe one day if this Stiles thing really does wind up being a fluke thing, we can try again. If he happens to be real and you guys are meant to be together then . . . I guess I can't really do anything."

Meilani's eyes glimmered with tears, the sun's rays reflecting in them as a few escaped and trailed down her cheeks like a small waterfall. She hated that things were the way that they were between her and Isaac. That he even had to have this conversation with her in the first place, but she was grateful to know that there were no hard feelings either. She couldn't lose Isaac and if she could still keep him by having him as her best friend again, then she'd take it in a heart beat. Even if things would still be a little weird for a while while they tried to get back to a different normal. "Why are you being so nice about all of this? You should be threatening to rip my throat our or something."

Isaac's lip twitched for a moment, a small smirk gracing his beautiful features. "Nah, I'm not Derek," he mused, earning a tiny, tear filled laugh from Meilani. "Shit happens, Meilani. Yes, I'm unbelievably heartbroken and I know you can feel it. I just . . . we got so much other shit going on that I barely even have time to focus all my thoughts on us breaking up. It's probably the most human thing that's happened to me in the past two years, but there's more important things at the moment. I can throw darts at a picture of your face later."

Meilani snorted at Isaac's attempted joke, squeaking softly when Isaac wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly to his solid chest. It took a minute, but Meilani's arms eventually wrapped around Isaac's waist and she pressed her cheek to his chest with a soft sigh. "I'm sorry it happened like this, Isaac. I wish things could be different . . .and maybe they are in some alternate universe."

"One where happiness exists," Isaac said gently, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. "Things will work out, Lans. They always do."

Boy did Meilani hope he was right.

"The corpus callosum is not only the largest white matter structure in the brain, but also the bridge connecting all parts of the brain to each other," Ms. Finch went on in class later that morning as the class furiously tried to take notes to keep up with her lecture. "That ability for all parts of the brain to communicate, and to work together, help us make leaps in cognitive thinking. Any questions, thoughts, insight, Lydia?"

Lydia snapped out of her daze where she'd been staring out the window next to Meilani and shot her wide green eyes to Ms. Finch who had walked over to the girls' lab table. "Oh, um . . . I completely agree."

Ms Finch nodded sarcastically and jerked her thumb over her shoulder to the window behind her. "Right. Is there something outside that's more fascinating than the structure of the human mind?"

"No. I don't think so."

"Okay, good. Now, many people credit the corpus callosum, uh, for giving us a sense of intuition, gut instinct, even we ourselves aren't aware . . ."

"I'm sorry, I'll be right back," Lydia cut across Ms. Finch who had tried to get the class going once again.

Meilani watched in confusion as Lydia bolted out of her stool and out of the classroom. She cursed to herself before she ran out after Lydia, shouting to Ms. Finch that she was going to check on Lydia and make sure she's okay. She followed Lydia's heart beat and the sound of her heeled boots to the parking lot where a powder blue Jeep was being set up to pull up on a tow truck. The strawberry blonde tried to pass off the Jeep as her own, but it was obvious the tow truck driver didn't believe her.

"It's mine," Meilani breathed out, slapping her hand on the hood of the Jeep as her necklace suddenly felt heavy around her neck once again. She ignored the sudden feeling and the warmth she felt beneath her palm even though the hood of the car had been hidden in the shade and way from the heat of the Californian sun. "Uh, my Jeep. Thank you. I'll move it once I get the keys. From my locker."

"I'm sorry, girls, but once it's on the hook — "

"Please don't say you're on the hook," Lydia pleaded the tow truck driver, desperation etching across her features.

Meilani chewed the inside of her lip as she saw the tow truck driver turn to continue doing his job. She had a tugging feeling to want to protect the Jeep as much as Lydia did and she couldn't place why or why she had a warm feeling flooding her as she kept her hand on the hood of the Jeep. Oddly a name crossed her mind as she stared at the old Jeep — Roscoe. "Oh, I . . . okay. Look, there's gotta be something that we can do. Sign something? Call someone? Pay someone? If this get towed, my mom will kill me."

An amused smirk appeared on the tow driver's face and Meilani and Lydia both had a feeling he was going to dick them around before he even opened his mouth. "Drop fee's a hundred and fifty. Cash."

Meilani balked at the amount and she could practically feel her wallet sobbing in the back pocket of her jeans. Deaton didn't pay nearly enough for that and Melissa's weekly allowance to Meilani and Scott wouldn't even cover it. "A hundred and fifty? Trust me, Roscoe isn't even worth that much."

"You named your Jeep?" the tow driver asked mockingly.

"I nickname everything. I have a pretty good one for you," Meilani quipped, eyes narrowing at the man as Lydia began to dig through her bag. She whispered to Meilani to give her whatever money she had and the true alpha blinked for a moment. Her gaze was questioning as she dug out the only money she had which Lydia took from her. "Lydia, that's all I —"

Without a word, the tow driver snatched the money from Lydia's hand when she held it out to him and walked around the girls to get to the tow truck so he could lower the blue Jeep from his truck. As he focused on that, Meilani tugged Lydia a few feet to the side so they could talk lowly.

"Lyds, I don't have the keys for this thing. You know that, right?" Meilani whispered to her best friend, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the tow driver was still occupied.

"You came up with a name for it quick enough," Lydia reminded Meilani, pointing out the name that just flew off Meilani's lips like it was a natural thing. "Plus . . . now we have a Jeep, right?"

Later that day, Meilani had been scribbling down notes with Isaac and Scott in her free when a high pitched sound shot through her ears. She winced at the intense sound and shared a look with Isaac as the Lahey boy had cringed as well, their werewolf hearing both being at a disadvantage. They both barely even grabbed their bags before they were off and out of the library, Scott hot in their heels as he shouted to them about what they heard. When they nearly crashed into Malia in the halls, they figured she'd heard as well.

When the four made it outside, they saw Lydia stood by the Jeep with her eyebrows furrowed over the sound. It took Meilani a minute, but she'd eventually broken the handle on the Jeep to get inside and the others piled in with Isaac hopping into the trunk almost like it was something he always did. She popped open glove compartment to try and find some sort of switch for the police scanner that rested right in between the two front seats that Meilani and Lydia occupied. 

Meilani paused when she plucked out a red scrunchie that Meilani remembered wearing around her wrist all the time when she was in freshman year. She hadn't seen it lately and she had been wondering where it was so she could put her hair up, having to use one of her older and more stretched out scrunchies from her bathroom. Beside it was her old freshman ID that she hated because they'd gotten her mid-blink and had refused to let her get another photo. She had all but hid that ID for months until she eventually got her sophomore ID at the end of freshman year. How did her scrunchie and ID end up in the car?

The radio at that moment suddenly switched off and the occupants of the Jeep all snapped their gazes over to the police scanner with confused gazes. 

"Why'd it stop?" Malia asked, posing the question that had been on everyone's  mind.

"It doesn't matter," Lydia sighed, fiddling with the red switch that was labeled MASTER SWITCH. It was clear she was trying to figure out what had made the radio suddenly switch to life out of nowhere on its own. "There has to be a reason."

Meilani watched as Lydia continued to play around with the buttons on the scanner until she focused on the scents in the car. She froze as she caught a scent of every person in this car, older scents that had hinted to them being in this Jeep before. Her attention was snapped back to Lydia when she asked Meilani about what she was smelling. "It's us. All of us."

"How? Mei, I've never seen this Jeep before," Scott chimed in, confused eyes trailing along the interior of the Jeep as if trying to jog his memory.

"Neither have I and yet my scrunchie and old ID are in here," Meilani announced, holding up the two items for the rest of the pack to see. "I can even smell Liam and Mason in here, which shouldn't even make sense. We have to not be remembering being in this Jeep."

"I thought we were done with that," Malia huffed, shooting Meilani and Lydia both a look when the strawberry blonde had nodded her agreement to Meilani's words.

Isaac frowned and leant forward on his arms, poking his head between the seats in the back. "Lia's right. I called Parrish after Meilani told me about the Jeep. He said there's no record of the owner anywhere in the database."

Lydia scoffed and slapped a hand down on the seat she was perched on. "Well, the Jeep didn't just drive itself here!"

"Stiles is not real," Scott stressed, though a frown took over his features which matched the one Isaac wore. The two boys hated having to let Meilani down, but they also knew it was for her own good. Lydia's, too. "Trust us, Mei. There's nothing on Stiles anywhere. We've already lost enough people. We can't add anyone else to that list."

Lydia poked her tongue into her cheek and dug more into the glove compartment that Meilani had been digging through previously and paused when she came across the registration for the car. A triumphant grin graced her features and she held it up for the pack to see.

It had been dated back to 1996 and the address was none other than the Stilinski residence.

"I — I don't know what to tell you," Claudia Stilinski stammered, staring down at the registration she held in her hands. "I haven't seen that Jeep in . . . almost eighteen years."

Meilani rose an eyebrow at Claudia and something felt off about the way she spoke, causing her to chew the inside of her lip. "Well . . . it's in your name."

Claudia shrugged and lowered the registration to her lap, flickering her gaze up to Lydia and Meilani who sat squished on the chair across from Claudia and Noah. "The Jeep was stolen. I can't tell you how that thing ended up at the high school."

"Yeah, beats me," Noah chimed in, scratching the side of his head as if in deep thought. "I mean, that thing was a junker even back in the day. God only knows who'd want it now."

"Maybe somebody dumped it there?" Claudia suggested.

"Is there any way to trace the history of the Jeep after it was stolen?" Lydia questioned, leaning forward in the chair as her arm gently brushed Meilani's knee and the alpha gave her best friend more room to move around. When Noah shook his head, Lydia slumped in defeat. "Maybe there's fingerprints in it! Anything."

Noah's bluish eyes bounced between the two girls sat before him who both looked incredibly desperate for this thing to lead them to Stiles. Somehow Meilani felt deep in her gut that this was something that could help them get to Stiles. "Girls, is this about Stiles?"

Claudia sighed sadly when the girls didn't make a move to comment on Noah's question. "Don't you think you two have taken this far enough now? I don't really know what's going on with you two lately, but maybe it's a good time to talk to Lydia's mom."

Meilani's eyes filled with tears as a strong ache erupted in her chest and she gingerly took the registration that Claudia held out to her. A fuzzy image of a beaming boy with hazel eyes that looked no older than fifteen showed off his new car to her. Or at least, new to him as he'd just gotten his license and his father gifted it to him as a present. However, that thought was gone as quick as it came and Meilani nearly sobbed at the thought. "Yeah . . . um, we're — we're sorry."

Noah shifted his gaze to Meilani and he gave her a sympathetic look. "Sweetheart, are you okay?"

"Oh, um . . . yeah — no, yeah. Do you mind if — " Meilani cut off, her voice shaking as her emotions raged like a harsh war inside of her. "Is it okay if Lyds and I — "

"Of course, take your time," Claudia said gently, motioning for the two girls to head to the bathroom down the hall if they needed.

With the permission, Meilani grabbed Lydia's hand and pulled her up after her. Her feet carried the two girls away from Claudia and Noah and down the hall. However, before Meilani and Lydia could make it towards the bathroom at the end of the hall, Meilani's feet froze on instinct and her head turned to the right where a wall was with a small hallway table with a flower pot perched on it. A small rip was made into the white wallpaper, the same wallpaper that Lydia mentioned to Meilani when she had a Banshee feeling when passing the same wall.

A tugging feeling erupted in Meilani's heart when she looked at the wall, a sense of nostalgia washing over her. Almost like something should be there that currently wasn't. She turned to Lydia when the Banshee ran her fingers along the same wall, eyebrows furrowed in concentration over the whole thing. Meilani raised her own hand and pressed her hand to it, feeling a warmth behind it almost like someone pressed their own hand to it from the other side.

Meilani couldn't quite place the feeling she was having, but she knew for a fact that something was missing from this part of the hallway. Something that belonged to Stiles.

Later that night when Lydia and Meilani returned back to the Jeep, they found the same tow driver trying to take it once again. Naturally, the tow driver underestimated Meilani and, thanks to Malia's own assistance when she walked over with Isaac and Scott, the hook for the truck had been snapped. Since he couldn't take the Jeep, the two driver had left with an annoyed grumble and hopped back up into his truck, driving away and leaving the pack alone once again.

The friends were left alone for all of five minutes before a pain filled roar echoed around the town, causing Meilani, Malia and Isaac all to perk their ears up to the sound. It had been so loud that even Lydia and Scott seemed to hear it as their own eyes began to search around them much like the three supernatural beings did.

"Did anyone else hear that?" Scott asked, brown eyes wide as he tried to find the source of the roar.

"I'm pretty sure all of Beacon Hills heard that," Lydia responded.

"Does anyone else recognize that roar?" Malia questioned next, tearing her eyes from the dark area ahead of them and towards the rest of the pack. "I swear I heard it before."

"Well, go check it out!" Lydia yelled, waving her hand for Malia, Isaac and Meilani to run off.

Without a second look, the two werewolves and the werecoyote took off into the night.

After a long run through the Beacon Hills Preserve, Isaac, Malia and Meilani found a burnt corpse laying in the leaves of the woods. His body still smoked as the trio approached and there was still a distinct heartbeat behind his chest to let the trio know he was still very much alive. His agonized groans were muffled by his mouth that had been charred shut and Meilani, Isaac and Malia all had pressed their hands to the man's crisp body to try and take as much of his pain away as they possibly could. However, Malia had pulled back almost instantly when she pulled out a set out of Jeep keys from the man's hands.

Meilani's eyes had widened in shock as she reached her hands out to wrap around the keys, the coolness setting off a familiar feeling through her. Almost like they might belong to the Jeep that rested in the dark parking lot that Lydia and Scott waited for them in. Malia and Isaac had both instantly dismissed Meilani, telling her to get back to Lydia and Scott since she was the fastest and would be able to find out if the Jeep would turn on with said keys quicker if she were the one to do it.

Making it back to the parking lot in record time, Meilani had scrambled into the driver's seat of the Jeep once again, startling Lydia and Scott who had been sat together with Lydia in the passenger seat and Scott in the back. When their eyes fell on the keys in Meilani's hands, they tilted their heads towards the engine, silently telling Meilani to try it.

Taking a deep breath, Meilani's shaky hand reached around the wheel and shoved the key into the ignition, turning the key once it was inside. The engined turned over once the key was turned enough, but it didn't start up like they expected. She kept trying to turn the key after that, pressing her foot on the gas in the hopes it'd get the car to start up.

"Don't flood it, Mei!" Scott warned his sister, lightly pulling on her shoulder to get her to stop turning the key.

"Do you even know what that word means, Scotty?" Meilani questioned him.

"Not — not really?" Scott replied sheepishly.

Meilani rolled her eyes fondly at him and turned her attention back to the keys. Squeezing her eyes shut in a silent prayer, Meilani turned the key one last time and her eyes snapped open when the engine started that time, the headlights instantly switching on. A gasp fell past her lips and she shared an excited look with both Lydia and Scott. 

Finally something went right.

The trio all shared a high five until the police scanner released a high pitched sound once again. Meilani quickly reached down to try and fiddle with the volume on the thing when a voice flooded out from the speakers, causing her her hand to freeze over the volume dial.

"Hello? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?"

Meilani let out a small cry at the sound of the voice, a teen boy's voice. It was the same exact voice that matched the boy in her head — Stiles. She fumbled with the walkie on the side of the machine and finally grasped it properly in her shaking hands, pressing the button on the side to speak. "St—Stiles? Stiles, are you there?"

"Lani? Baby, is that you?" Stiles voice filtered through the speakers, a loving and excited tone taking over his voice at the sound of his girlfriend's voice. Relief flooded through the spastic boy as he closed his eyes, clutching his own walkie in his hand as he relished in the melodic sound that was Meilani's voice.

Meilani laughed as tears fell down her cheeks, licking her suddenly dry lips. "Y—yeah, it's me. Lydia and Scott are with me. We can hear you."

"Oh my God, you know me? You remember me?" 

"Stiles, is this . . . is this you? Is this actually you?" Lydia breathed, leaning closer to Meilani so she could speak into the walkie properly as her own eyes shone with unshed tears. 

"Yeah, guys, it's me. Lani, do — do you remember the last thing I said to you?" 

Meilani gripped onto the walkie, her brown eyes squeezing shut as she felt the memories wash over her from the night Stiles had been taken. Everything suddenly hitting her now like a freight train.

"Baby, hey . . . " Stiles weakly called, earning Meilani's full attention as his hands clammed up and she could smell the instant scent of anxiety around him. More so than usual. "Just um . . . you have to listen to me, okay? Baby, you have to listen to me. Just . . . just remember that I love you. You have to remember that for me, okay? That — that we're soulmates. Don't forget it."

Meilani opened her mouth to ask him why he was acting so weird when his lips pressed down onto hers, cutting off whatever her response would have been. She melted into the kiss momentarily, the same heat that flooded her system every time they kissed filling her up from head to toe. Her heart pounded unhealthily fast in her chest and it was like the world around them stopped for a moment, Meilani's hands gripping to the front of Stiles' purple and black flannel.

"I love you, Lani. I will always love you," Stiles breathed when he eventually pulled away, hazel eyes boring into Meilani's brown ones. "You'll always be the prettiest girl in the world and I will always love you. Just remember me, baby. You have to remember that."

Meilani pulled away slowly from Stiles, eyebrows furrowed in confusion over Stiles' sudden weird behavior. She squeezed his hand and placed another chaste kiss to his lips and smiled softly at him. "Yeah . . . I'll always love you too, Sti. I'm gonna go check the quad, okay? Just tell me when you find Liam and Hayden. We'll meet back up wherever you are. I'll come find you." 

Meilani sniffled as she fluttered her eyes open, lashes drenched from her tears and she ached heavily to reach out and touch Stiles. Hold him in her arms again. "You said . . . you said " you'll always be the prettiest girl in the world and I'll always love you ". You . . . you wanted me to remember you loved me and to not forget you. That we're soulmates. It's — I think that's how I've been remembering you."

A harsh breath left of Stiles, almost sounding like relief as he pressed the walkie to his head. He could almost cry with joy that his girlfriend remembered him. That it sounded like his friends remembered him.

"Stiles, bud, are you okay? We're gonna come find you," Scott promised Stiles, practically leaning his whole body over the back seats to get close enough to the walkie.

"No, no, no. You can't. You won't be able to find me."

"What?! No, Sti, I — what are you talking about?" Meilani frantically asked, dread filling her body over the thought of not being able to get to Stiles. How could she help him if she couldn't even find him and get him to safety? "Just tell us where you are. I'll grab Isaac and Malia and . . . "

"Right, just remember this for me, baby, okay? Canaan. You have to find Canaan. Just find Canaan. I love you."

With the the police scanner cackled and sparked before Stiles' voice was gone and Meilani let out a tiny whimper. Scott and Lydia tried to shout for Stiles again, but he never came back. Leaving the trio with their new mission.

Canaan.

word count: ( 5k )

chapters left: 15

— STILES IS MAKING A COME BACK, BITCHES !!! i have been DYING to do this chapter ever since the start of this book and i'm so excited we finally got up to this point. Meisaac officially broke things off and i totally didn't make a nod to my other fic NOWHERE TO TURN in this chapter where Meisaac is actually canon instead of Stilani. ( hint: it's a crossover book with Ellis' oc Adrian Martin — who is with Stiles, hence why no Stilani — and it's basically Meilani re-written and you should totally go read it because it'll be double the angst in that rewrite ) 

— also, this chapter is for roscoeobrien cause she had to listen to me rant about this particular bit for MONTHS. i've pretty much been ranting and raving about this season since I started writing S4 and i'd just like to thank Ellis for listening to me and crying with me like she always does. it's why she's my VIP wife and i love her with my whole heart. she also loves Meilani more than me so . . . you're welcome, ellis. 

— ALSO 2.0, i will be doing a one shot for Stiles and Peter being in the tunnels at the train station from this episode in the Meilani one shot book ( take on the world ). peter will talk about the soul mate stuff and all that so that will be up sometime next week! i just didn't include it in this chapter because it would have been too long so consider it a bonus scene! 

— don't forget, Meilani has a twitter ( moonymeilani ) so go follow her !!! i try to tweet for her as much as i can.

MEILANI FACT OF THE CHAPTER:

meilani's guilty pleasure is one direction and she high key still bops to them in her room with no regrets whatsoever. harry styles is her favorite and i'm sure you'll be able to tell that in her tweets on twitter as more come out , i can promise you that. ( which like, same sis )

( beginning banner by hellstarshipper / ending banner by murdersongs )