Phoenix || Malia Tate

32

The Rosary household is not a big fancy, family home. It is a one floor, two bedroom little corner in the quiet side of Beacon Hills. Of course, this is not the home Phoenix grew up in. After his parents died this was all he and Ellie could afford. He can't complain. It's a nice house and there are others out there with a much worse circumstance.

Facing the house now, in all its little brick glory, Phoenix is confronted. With the past and with the present. With what he once knew and what he now knows. He's breathing gets heavier because it's all so real now. He's really about to do this. He's really about to face the darkest parts of himself and possibly betray his own sister to help save a bunch of people he didn't know until a few months ago. How did it get this? He wonders. How did it all get so messed up?

He can't stand outside like this for long. Ellie will be back from work soon and time is running out. It's now or never. Part of him wants to choose never, but the bigger part knows it has to be now.

He forces himself to walk across the little lawn and up the front stairs. The door opens without much of a struggle. Ellie hasn't changed the locks. Phoenix's heart cracks a little more as he realizes it's because of him. She's still hoping, waiting for him to come home. He forces the lump in his throat down, and walks into the place he once knew to be home.

And it all looks the same. Nothing has changed, nothing has been moved, not even the slightest, and the normalcy of it brings this weird nostalgia. This reminiscence of what used to be. Of what was comforting and warm – of what was once home. And just as quickly as it comes, as quickly as it all brings that normalcy, it's gone, replaced by the knowledge that the Ellie he now knows is not the same Ellie that poses next to Mom and Dad in those photos on the wall.

Mom and Dad. It's still so hard to look at those photos. He misses them so much, now more than ever. He wonders what would have happened if they were still alive, how things would've turned out, and realizes everything would be different. Ellie wouldn't be some secret dangerous hunter and he wouldn't feel this messed up, but he also never would've known about the supernatural and never would've met Malia, or even Scott.

Malia and Scott.

I promised Malia, he reminds himself. I promised the whole pack.

He has a job to do. Strolling down memory lane will just have to wait.

He searches the house, careful to turn everything upside and put it exactly how he found it. Ellie doesn't need to know that he was here. He's not entirely sure what he's looking for but he knows he'll know when he finds it. He has to. The pack - the entire town - is relying on him for this.

He spends most of his time searching the office/Ellie's room. She's locked the door, and it takes him five crucial minutes to pick it, but he has to get into this room. This is where she took them, those other hunters. If there's anything to find, it will be in here. And it is. Suddenly, Phoenix knows exactly what he's looking for. It's kind of hard to miss the line of homemade bombs lying on the office floor.

A female voice suddenly speaks behind him. "Nix?"

*

The gorgeous Maggie Grace is Ellie Rosary in case you didn't know. Now you know.

ASDFGHJKL ALSO PHOENIX HIT 10K THANK YOU I LOVE YOU ALL YOU'RE ALL HELLA AMAZING!!! (no but seriously, I'm losing my mind. Thank you a million times again and again.)