Phoenix || Malia Tate

27

School is an endless, repetitive cycle of boring nothingness, but it is the one stability in the very unstable lives of a group of teenagers. The McCall pack often relish in it, in the system, in the schedules when they can. Of course, the majority of the group hate school, but not even they can deny that there's something comforting about having that kind of stability.

School has become Malia's new stability. Where the den and he once stood, she has now replaced with mathematical equations she still does not quite understand and historical dates she kinda does understand. When she's not patrolling the town and making sure everyone on the protection list is safe, she's throwing herself in her school work, working harder than she has ever worked before. It is exhausting and she's barely sleeping, but that's okay. She wasn't sleeping much anyway, and at least this way she's actually being productive.

*

"I don't like this," Stiles voices that one, faithful specific day. He, Scott, and Malia are all in the library doing some studying (Argent and Peter are on shift for the protection list), and Stiles is watching Malia, who is sat on the far end of the table, surrounded by pens and papers and books.

Scott looks up from his own homework (AP Biology is a pain) and looks at Stiles with a blank expression. "Don't like what?"

"This," Stiles nods towards Malia. "The way she's throwing herself into everything. It's not healthy."

"Stiles –"

"She's distracting herself instead of actually dealing with what's happened. I know you said to respect what's going on with her, but she could know some important stuff on this Phoenix guy. Important stuff we might need to know."

"Stop," Scott says. "No, okay? Forcing her to talk will not end well. And even if she did talk, she already said she doesn't know anything about the Rosary hunters. Even Phoenix himself says he had nothing to do with it."

"And we're just going to believe the brother of the chick that almost killed you?" Stiles retorts.

"If there was something we needed to know, we would know. It's Malia, dude."

That makes Stiles pause and reconsider. "Yeah," he says after a moment. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just –"

"Paranoid about the situation and worried about her," Scott finishes. "I am too. We all are. But we can't help her if she doesn't want it."

"Why do you have to be so fortune cookie wise all the damn time?" Stiles scoffs, looking back down at his books.

Scott laughs. "It came with the bite."

At the end of the table, Malia sits surrounded by books. Despite their grand effort to whisper, she has heard the entire thing. There is a moment where the air suddenly seems the thin and her heart is suddenly too loud. Malia focuses back down at her work. She would rather drown herself in the words of her textbook than to think about everything Scott and Stiles have just said.

*

Two hours later, Malia walks out of the library by herself. Scott and Stiles are still in there studying, but she has to go meet Kira so they can take over from Argent and Peter (since things had been pretty quiet since the Station attack, they decided to just have two people patrol and do rounds on the protection list rather than have everyone do it at the same time).

If she's honest, Malia cannot wait to start her shift with Kira. She's needed to get out of that library for the past two hours, but sheer determination kept her seated. She didn't want to raise any suspicion with the boys.

But Malia is now free and she needs to get her mind off that conversation and off what that conversation implies. She needs to talk about Grey's Anatomy and the Civil War and anything, really, that does not let her think about that conversation.

She's halfway to the car, mind working overtime trying so hard not to think of something that's almost impossible not to think of when she stops dead in her tracks. The very breath in her chest is completely knocked out of her as she finds herself completely paralyzed and unable to do anything but stare in shock.

Suddenly the comfort that school had given her is gone, because sitting on a picnic table a few feet away, is Phoenix Rosary.