Stand By Me

51

Peyton leaned against the bleachers while Scott and Stiles spoke. Stiles was trying to reassure Scott. "Of course you're still the team captain. You got your grades up just like Coach told you to, right?"

Scott gave him a nod. "Yeah, but he never told me I was back on the team. He just told me to show up at tryouts today."

Stiles shrugged. "We got bigger things to deal with anyway. Did you tell Argent yet?"

"Ah. I texted him, but he didn't get back to me."

Peyton frowned. "You told him his crazy sister was back from the dead over a text? That's a real feat, Scott."

He turned to her and shrugged. "I didn't have the money to call France."

"Wow. You know, you can ask people. I need to grab something from my locker. Enjoy practice, and don't let the freshmen beat you." She waved goodbye to the boys and walked away.

The bell rang and as Peyton was walking to math, Malia walked into the classroom and exit almost immediately. Feeling the faint brush of someone passing her, she reached out and grabbed her shoulders and took her back into the classroom.

Malia shot Peyton a frown. "I hate math. It's pointless."

"I hate it too, but math is essential to the important parts in life," she told the werecoyote.

"To what?" Malia asked.

"Knowing how to tip at restaurants," Stiles said.

Lydia frowned at him. "And other less important things like medicine, economics, engineering..."

"Tipping," Stiles interrupted.

Peyton let out a sigh and Mrs. Fleming began class. "All right, volunteers to the board. Lydia, Diego, Malia."

Malia glanced up and frowned. "Um... I didn't volunteer."

Mrs. Fleming gave her a small smile. "You did now. To the board."

She and Lydia talked with each other while Peyton sat back and listened.

As soon as it did, Malia, Kira and Peyton made their way to the lacrosse field.

On the field, there was a kid who was showing everyone up; including Scott. The kid was doing well at everything; running, goal, and every position imaginable.

Malia frowned at Kira. "What's wrong with you?" She turned to look at Peyton. "Can you calm down? You look annoyed."

Kira frowned. "Me? Nothing."

Malia turned back to her. "You reek of anxiety. And it's distracting. What's going on?"

Kira bit her lip nervously. "Scott and I sort of had this thing happen. But it wasn't much of a thing. And I'm starting to think it never was anything at all."

"What do you want it to be?"

"More."

They turned back to watch the field and the freshman was still kicking everyone's ass. Kira asked, "Isn't the captain supposed to be one of the best players on the team? Or good?"

Peyton frowned. "Yes and yes. If he's doing that terribly, what in the hell is going on with him?"

Suddenly, the game clicked with the boys and Coach cried, "That's my boys! Those two are like sons to me."

"Yes!" Kira cheered loudly.

As soon as the freshman wonder walked up, he performed a twisting maneuver.

"That was luck!" Malia cried. "Do over!"

Peyton nodded. "Yeah, do over!"

Coach made his way over to them and said, "Sweetheart, there's no do overs. This is practice. Sawyer, I thought you remembered that."

Peyton smiled sweetly. "Oh, I do, Coach. But I want to see my friends kick their preppy freshman asses."

Malia said with determination, "Ten bucks on Scott and Stiles."

Coach smirked. "I'll take that action. Hey! Get back in there, Liam."

The boy did so and Scott ran a second time and flipped Liam. The latter stood, but it was obvious he was in pain. The boys decided to take him to the nurse and Peyton chose to follow.

After examining him, the nurse said, "He has a bad sprain. It'd be best if he were to go to the hospital."

They took him to the hospital to make sure he was okay. Scott talked to Kira before they took Liam to the hospital.

When they got there, Melissa walked up to them. Scott smiled awkwardly at his mom. "Uh... Hi, Mom."

Melissa smiled at Liam as she wheeled him away. She leaned down and said something to him that Peyton couldn't hear.

Peyton frowned. "I'm not sure what Melissa is gonna do, but it'll probably hurt. I hope he'll be okay."

They left and Stiles turned to Scott. "Peyton and I have to get going. We're gonna help Malia study."

Scott replied, "Sure. I want to check on him anyway."

Peyton turned in the direction of her friend's voice. "Scott, it wasn't your fault. Unless you purposefully injured that poor freshman..."

He lowered his head. "I don't know."

"Scott, you held back."

Stiles nodded. "She's right. Scott, if you had used any wolf power, that kid wouldn't be limping; he'd be crawling back to the other half of his body."

Scott shook his head. "If I hadn't been so worried about being captain, he wouldn't be hurt either."

Peyton gave a small smile. "You are still half-human, Scott. It's okay to do things for yourself every once in a while."

Scott smiled briefly as Stiles drove himself and Peyton to his place after they'd picked up Malia. They studied for about an hour and Malia decided she was done. Peyton was already focused on something of pressing matters.

Peyton frowned. "Why the hell am I doing this?"

Stiles lifted her chin up and said, "Hey, we're not finished yet."

"Maybe you're not, but I am," she mumbled.

"Okay... I promised you, Malia and I were going to study. What's with all the highlighters anyway?"

"Green is for what I understand, yellow is for what I'm working on, and red... Red means I don't know what I'm doing," Malia replied. "Peyton suggested it to me."

Stiles smiled at Peyton as Malia added, "Also, Lydia's notes are really confusing."

Stiles took the notes from Malia's hands and frowned. "This isn't math. What is this?"

Peyton shook her head. "If it isn't math, I don't know what it is."