Counterpart|Stiles Stilinski

Inquiry

Stiles leaned against the cool locker fatigue in his bones he could have fell asleep waiting for the strawberry blonde to arrive at her locker. After his night terror, he quickly dug out his old middle school yearbook looking for Gabriella Martin, but the words - letters - were running down the pages. It did help that he fell asleep at his desk looking at the third grade class and the powernap made the words readable. She was right he did know her then, but he didn't know her now.

His brain tried to rack through anything regarding this Martin girl, but he couldn't remember anything other than after her father's car crash she stopped attending their middle school and was transferred somewhere else. He believed he heard she was emotionally fragile and school would be too much for her. He didn't question it especially since he knew the pain of losing a parent two years later.

So his next plan of action was to ask her cousin, Lydia Martin, about her and her known whereabouts. The only problem he didn't know how to approach the topic of her cousin without Lydia becoming suspicious. Plus with his literacy skill being that of a three year old he couldn't necessarily hack into the Beacon Hills police department to do a background check.

Stiles was watching his peers wander the halls filling it with gossip when Lydia appeared in front of him looking at him inquisitively. "Stiles is everything okay?"

Stiles vigorously nodded his head as he answered, "Yeah, yeah, I just need to ask you a question."

"Okay." She replied as she waited for him to continue.

Stiles rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at Lydia trying to figure out how to word his question, "Your cousin, Gabriella, does she still live in Beacon Hills?"

He watched as Lydia looked at him concerned as she pursed her lips together and opened her locker as she began speaking, "Gabriella...I haven't spoken to her in years...my mom told me she was sent to live with one of my dad's cousins a few states away."

"So you never heard from her in the past eight years?" Stiles asked his brows furrowed, as this information didn't help him in anyway plus it conflicted with how Gabriella told him she was still in Beacon Hills.

Lydia closed her locker door as she peered back up at him her eyes emitting confusion, "Why are you asking about my cousin?"

Stiles shook his head, "It doesn't matter. Forget I asked." He told her as he began walking away. He could faintly hear Lydia call after him, but he ignored her as he made way to his first class. He knew in the past Lydia had the exterior of being cold and heartless, but he didn't think that would extend to her cousin and not question why she hadn't heard from her in eight years.

Maybe he was analyzing the situation to hard, but he needed to know - understand - why he was seeing Gabriella in his dreams.

Stiles walked down the school hallway. Kids were in their cliques huddled together in laughter. It amazed Stiles after everything that has happened in this school with classmates being sacrificed and teachers missing or dead how life still went on as if the events didn't happen since they didn't impact them immediately. He still found it uncomfortable sitting in English class, some days he expected Jennifer to walk through the doors since her body was never found and who is too say she didn't find her way back to the Nemeton to suck some more juice out of it knowing his sacrifice jumpstarted it again. Although everyday a new substitute walked into the classroom and Jennifer's presence was seemingly forgotten, but to him she would always have an imprint on him. He still remembered the text she sent in class and his morbid mind he still had it and practically memorized,

"The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky - seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."*