—

"Okay." Ryder huffed as she pulled her shirt over her head, glancing back towards the teen who had yet to move from his spot on the bed, the only thing covering his naked body being his blanket, "So, ice cream, meet Scott, Stiles and Isaac, then Senior Scribe. Are we ready?"

Austin opened his eyes a bit, the blue color hardly being seen from how dilated his pupils were. He looked at the blonde with a soft smile, "We're almost ready. Just give me ten minutes."

"We don't have ten minutes, Austin." His girlfriend nearly groaned, walking around his bedroom to get him fresh clothes, "If we want to make everyone happy, we need to get moving now."

"I don't care about everyone else's happiness. We can get ice cream and skip time helping Scott and Stiles with watching Liam."

"Um..." She pretended to think about it, already knowing how guilty he'd feel if he skipped time helping the Dunbar, "No. Get up."

The light in front of him disappeared as she tossed a shirt in his direction, the material landing directing on his face. He had no intentions of moving any quicker until he heard her sharp gasp,

"Okay, change of plans."

"What?"

"My mom's going into labor."

Austin wasn't given the chance to respond before the girl darted out of the room. He began to quickly put his clothes on, nearly jumping out of his skin as her footsteps traveled back to his bedroom,

He hopped on one foot as he put his shoes on, faintly hearing her words,

"I need a ride."

"I know you need a ride!"

•••

"Where is she?" Ryder nearly shouted as she entered the hospital, her eyes landing on her father pacing back and forth.

"Could you have taken any longer?" Aaron scoffed as he directed her towards Ramona's room, Austin being left in the front as he didn't want to see anything he couldn't immediately forget. He'd support the family, but would definitely be doing it from a distance.

"Hi, mom." Ryder spoke softly as she walked into the room, smiling at the woman who looked drained.

"Hi, Ry."

"How you feeling?"

Ramona's eyes closed as her daughter ran a gentle hand through her hair, "I'd feel much better if you were at your senior scribe like you promised me you'd be."

"Writing on a bookshelf is the least of my worries right now, mom. You're about to give birth! That's a big deal!"

"I'm aware it's a big deal, Ryder, i've done it once before with you, okay?" Ramona sighed, "But we're going to be here for at least another fourteen hours, you'll be gone for at most three. I promise you, we'll be okay for the time being."

"But mom—"

"Ryder, seriously." The woman huffed, more annoyed at her daughter's stubbornness than the contractions she was currently having, "Go have fun, and when you're done, you can't spend the remaining ten hours in those uncomfortable hospital chairs waiting for your unknown gendered sibling."

Despite her mother's words, Ryder was still ridiculously hesitant to go. Seeing his wife's expression and his daughter's unwillingness to leave the woman along, Aaron decided to voice his opinion,

"Ryder. Maybe just give your mom a few hours to calm down and take that time to go enjoy yourself as a senior, yeah?"

"Okay." She sighed out, moving to hug her mom, discreetly taking any pain the contractions were giving her and moving away quickly before Ramona had the opportunity to swat her for doing so. "I'll see you guys later."

"We'll see you later, Ry. And be careful, alright? It's supposed to rain. Tell Austin to drive safe."

"Got it." She walked out, throwing herself back in the doorway before it could close, "Call me if he or she decides to come early?"

"We will." Aaron laughed, "Now go."

•••

"Is it a party?"

"It's not a party."

"Then what's at midnight?"

"Your bedtime."

"Why aren't the girls going?"

"They're meeting us there, okay? And just stop asking questions, all right? It's a senior thing. You'll know when you're a senior." Stiles huffed, growing tired of Liam's constant questions.

The Stilinski and Dunbar, along with Scott, Josie and Isaac, all accompanied Liam in making sure he didn't do anything drastic during the full moon. Josie tagged along seeing as she was one of the few people, the others being his alpha and partly Austin, that could keep the boy calm.

Josie rolled her eyes at Stiles' words, glancing at Liam, "It's called Senior Scribe. They'll just be writing their names on a bookshelf."

"Who told you that?" Stiles asked as he looked at her through the rear view mirror.

"My sister's a senior. And so is her boyfriend." She sassed him, "And Isaac can't keep a so called 'secret' from anyone."

"It wasn't a secret to begin with." The Lahey shrugged, adjusting himself in the backseat.

He originally had no intentions of coming along with Scott and Stiles to ensure that Liam was okay during the full moon, but after learning from Josie that her sister and sister's boyfriend would be having 'fun time', he had no further plans. Which led to Isaac tagging along with Josie, who would coincidentally be hanging out with the people he blew off in the first place.

To say Stiles rubbed that in his face would be an understatement.

"You guys having trouble with your phones?" Scott glanced towards the teens in the back seat.

"Yeah." Josie nodded, "No one's answering my very urgent text messages on how my mom is doing."

Unknown to her, her mother was currently preparing to give birth to her new sibling.

Before anyone could respond, Stiles' jeep engine began to splutter,

"Oh. What the hell?"

"You out of gas?" Liam asked.

"No, it's electrical. Probably the alternator again." Stiles answered, getting out the car with Scott following behind him, Isaac going the same as he needed to stretch his long legs.

"Whoa, that's a lot of duct tape." Isaac commented, earning a glare from Stiles.

Scott chuckled, "He's kidding. We'll fix it."

"I wasn't kidding." Isaac mumbled, Scott catching his words while it went deaf to Stiles' ears.

Stiles sighed softly, "I know, it's just the last night of summer, you know, so I wanted to make sure everyone was there tonight."

"We'll make it." Scott reassured his friend, "You got any tools?"

"Yeah."

From inside the jeep, Josie flinched at the sound of thunder rumbling, her hand instinctively grabbing Liam's wrist in a panic.

"Guys...Guys!"

"Yeah, give us a second, please."

"Guys, stay in the car, okay?" As Scott says this, lightning strikes not too far away from the older teens, forcing them to jump back in shock,

Stiles sighed loudly, "That was close."

"Very close."

As Isaac took this as his cue to get back into the jeep to avoid a second time in the hospital, Liam reached forward to turn the key of the car, the engine starting,

"Can we go now?"

•••

Ryder lingered outside the schools entrance in hopes of catching sight of someone she knew.

The plan that Stiles had come up with was already completely out of whack since Ramona had went into labor. The girl was lucky enough to have gotten a text from Isaac that after stopping by the hospital, he and Josie would soon be showing up with Stiles and Malia. What threw her off, however, was him mentioning that Scott had ran off to quite literally rescue Kira from traffic.

Ryder wanted to ask what that meant but knew that once her friend got back on the road, his service would no longer be there.

"Nothing from Scott or Kira. And nothing from Lydia either."

"And I still don't know if I passed. I don't want to do this unless I'm actually a senior."

"Yeah." Stiles whispered softly, clearly distracted.

"What's wrong with you? You smell terrible."

"Yeah, it's called anxiety. Should be a familiar scent for you by now, since it's pretty much a constant state for me."

"Why's this thing so important to you?"

"It's not. It's not. It's uh... I don't know. Maybe it is. I asked my dad the other day about his high school friends. Guess how many he still talks to? None. Not a single one. You know, these were his best friends and he just says he lost touch with them, you know. So I started thinking about things, like I always do."

"Obsessively."

"Yeah. And so I'm thinking, what if...What if Scott's my best friend now you know, but he's not my best friend for life?"

"Well, doesn't that just happen sometimes?" Malia frowned.

"Yeah, but only because we let it happen. You know, that's what I'm saying. How come when we graduate we're just expected to go our separate ways? If I've already found the best people in my life, why aren't I not trying to stay with them, you know?"

"Well, I thought that was the plan. The dream."

"The vision." He corrected, "And don't mock the vision."

"I... I like the vision. Especially if I'm part of it." She spoke to him softly, unaware that his mind was somewhere else, or someone else, "So that's why you wanted everyone here tonight. Because you don't want to lose all your friends after senior year."

"And I hope they don't want to lose me either."

"Cute." A voice cut in, their heads snapping to see Josie stood there with Isaac's jacket over her shoulders, her hair a little damp from the rain, "This would be the second time I ask if either of you have seen my sister."

"Our phones are dead." Isaac spoke up, waving his own device around dramatically.

It was then that Stiles remembered that the second they got here, she did ask if they had gotten a text from Ryder about her whereabouts.

Before the Stilinski could respond, Malia and Isaac furrowed their brows in unison,

"Malia?"

"Someone's coming. Someone fast."

Noticing the scent, Isaac tried to reassure her, "It's just—"

He's interrupted by Malia charging forward, slamming the body of the person to the ground, a groan of pain falling from their lips,

"Oh, my God." Stiles muttered.

Liam panted heavily, "Scott's in trouble."

"There you guys are." The familiar voice of Austin could he heard, his blue eyes landing on Josie, "Ry's looking all over for you."

Josie perked up at the mention of her sister.

"What's going on?" The George teen pursed his lips.

Isaac's shoulders dropped as Liam's words lingered in his mind, "Scott's in trouble."

•••

Seeing as Ryder was all the way in the school building, she had managed to miss more than half the fight Austin had ran to tell her about.

Luckily for her, she wouldn't have to get involved as Scott seemed to be doing pretty well on his own,

"I don't know who you are or what you thought you were going to do, but I'll give you a choice. You can stay and I'll break something else. Or you can run."

"I'd run."

As the man took off, all eyes turned to the teen standing confidently as he looked between them.

"You don't remember me, do you? I guess I look a little different since the fourth grade."

"Theo?"

Even Scott saying the guys name hadn't rang any bells in Ryder's head. The girls memory was absolutely horrendous, especially considering she hadn't seen him since fourth grade. Kind of weird that this Theo assumed they would remember him after eight years of not seeing him.

"You know him?" Malia asked, glancing at her boyfriend and sister.

"They used to." Theo spoke up, smiling at her, his eyes traveling from Malia to Austin and back to Ryder, "Trust me, I never thought I'd see you guys again. Couple of months ago, I heard of an Alpha in Beacon Hills. When I found out his name was Scott McCall, just couldn't believe it. Not just an Alpha, but a True Alpha."

"What do you want?"

"I came back to Beacon Hills. Back home with my family. Because I want to be a part of your pack."

•••

"We haven't seen this kid in years. You don't find that highly suspicious?"

"I'm kind of more concerned about the guy who just tried to kill me." Scott said.

Stiles huffed, his eyes landing on Austin and Ryder, "What about you guys?"

"I'm trying to avoid speaking about him." Austin ran his tongue over his teeth, squeezing Ryder's hand as he spoke.

"I don't really care." The Anders girl shrugged, "He left, he came back. I don't get the big deal."

"You don't get the big deal—? Ryder—"

Stiles was cut off by Malia's phone buzzing, the Tate girl gasping softly,

"I'm in. I passed. I'm officially a senior."

Knowing this was a prideful moment for her sister, Ryder didn't immediately pull away when Malia excitedly wrapped her arms around her, then proceeding to move onto the others who congratulated her.

The clacking of heels took the group away from Malia's moment, "Thank God. Where have you guys been? The whole senior class is here. Are we doing this or not?"

The teens chuckled, making their way into the library with everyone else.

They waiting patiently in line for their turn to write on the shelf,

"This isn't vandalism, is it?" Kira voiced her concerns.

"Not technically." Lydia shrugged.

Austin held back his comment on how if none of the staff knew what was going on then 'technically' it could be considered vandalism.

It seemed Isaac took noticed of the expression on his face as nudges him softly, "Let it go, man."

As Ryder came up next, she wasted no time in writing her initials next to Kira's,

R.M.A

Austin going next, smiling thankfully as his girlfriend passed him the marker,

A.G

He then passed the marker to Isaac, who sighed softly. The Lahey had absolutely no intent of coming back to Beacon Hills after he left the first time.

He fully planned on leaving the town that caused him nothing but pain and sorrow. Thinking about it now, the same people that annoyed him to no end, also brought him happiness, so as he wrote his initials, his mind was on the people that made him who his is today,

I.L

As everyone took their chance, Scott ended up being last, writing his name before he hesitated in writing something else.

His body seemed to be blocking the view of what he put down, but as he stepped back, he could practically hear the packs heart speed up in unison,

A.A

"She would have been with us."

"Yeah."

"She still is."

—
A/N: womp, womp. i'm back ! and so is my boy Theo!