The Morning After

The Morning After (Stalia Fanfic)

Stiles POV

Stiles sighed contentedly as he rolled over in bed to wrap his arms around the sleepily warm body curled around him. He always loved waking early, to find Malia sleeping peacefully beside him, loved the way the early morning sunshine streamed through the open window to ignite her golden brown curls and soften the smooth skin of her cheek. The window was always left open after she had crawled through it in the early hours, despite her constant complaints of being chilly. He suspected that this was what she missed most about the woods - sleeping out in the open coolness of the night, no ceilings or restricting bed sheets, only the gaping cavern of a star pricked sky. 
However, this morning his hand only met the cold starchy fabric of his duvet cover, and cracking his eyes open groggily he realised the window was still firmly latched, the room stuffy and overheated. With a pang that echoed somewhere deep inside his chest he remembered the events of the previous night, the pure betrayal and hurt in her eyes, the desperate grasp of her hand on his arm to stop him even touching her. He had read somewhere that after an emotional trauma your heartstrings could snap, and that’s what it had felt like, as if someone had reached into him and ripped his pathetic excuse of an organ apart. He hadn't even been able to yell after her, knowing that nothing could repair the damage he had inflicted, yet he still yearned for a chance to explain himself, to make her understand that it was all to protect her. She may be a were-coyote, strong, fast and bloody stubborn, but her fierce, compulsive nature ended her in as many dangerous positions as it did save her. Peter would use this to manipulate her, he would twist and twist her til she was at breaking point, and all the while she wouldn’t even realise that he was pulling the strings. Being his daughter would not protect her, it simply increased the likelihood of him using her.  In the warped, perverted little games Peter played, Malia was no longer a pawn, she was the queen, and the piece Peter would use the most to defend himself.
There were some selfish reasons too, he was ashamed to admit. Part of him hadn’t wanted to tell her because he didn’t want to lose her, he was scared that it would ruin the happiness she had bought to his fractured world, scared it would tarnish some of the happy times they had had together. He smiled for a second, remembering the day Malia had unwisely decided to bake cupcakes. Stiles had opened the door to the an assault of the senses; the consistent beeping of the smoke alarm, the hazy smoke which made his eyes water, and the charring smell of burned something. After raising a bemused eyebrow at a decidedly scared looking sheriff, he had hurried down into the kitchen to discover a dishevelled looking Malia, a pale streak of flour across her nose, desperately trying to waft the smoke out of the large windows with a flapping tea towel. He had burst into laughter, and even her growls of annoyance didn’t stop him, until grinning inanely he had kissed her right there in the kitchen, not caring about the smoke or the smell, or that the sheriff was right outside the door. Afterwards he had helped her make a new batch, patiently explaining that bread flour and self-rising flour were very different, and that they needed only twenty minutes to cook, not an entire hour. Even he had to admit, by the 4th batch, they were pretty damn tasty. However, Malia was no longer trusted in the kitchen on her own after that, and even now he teased her about it, a sly half grin on his face, laughing at the small growls and furious looks she gave him. 
The smile slipped from his face, and his heart plunged once more. He rolled over to his bedside, desperately grasping for his phone, praying she had replied. Nothing. Sighing, he replied to Scott's concerned messages, then sent out his 17th hopeful text, *Malia, please, just give me a chance to explain*...