InsaneJournal

Who: Scott & Malia
Where: Malia’s house
When: Shortly after Scott is healed
What: Scott confronts her about her helping with the nogitsune
Status: Complete
Warnings: None.




Scott felt better physically. Isaac helped him a lot and Scott knew that if Isaac hadn’t, he probably would have died. Actually, there was like no probably to it. He would have. He still remembered the sight of it all, but now when he ran his fingers over the skin, it was healed completely. There was something different in the way that Isaac helped him, he couldn’t really understand it, but he wasn’t dismissing it. It felt like everything changed, but maybe it was Isaac feeling bad that he left Beacon HIlls behind after Allison died. Maybe he was guilty because he left Scott behind. He didn’t want him to feel guilty over it, he just wanted him to understand that it hurt when he did leave.

But Scott wasn’t thinking about that right now. Isaac had told him not to leave because he was injured, so he didn’t. The only time he left was to find Stiles, because it was Stiles. He ended up finding him and they talked, or more like Scott tried to convince him to come back. Stiles didn’t want to be around anyone, not even Scott. Especially not Scott, but Scott stayed and sometimes they sat in silence while other times Scott just listened to him cry. Isaac found them and a little later after that, Scott went back because he wasn’t fully healed yet.

He was fine now though. And he knew he needed to see Stiles again, but right now, he needed to talk to Malia. He’d been putting it off but that was because he didn’t know what to say to her. It didn’t matter though. He could prepare himself over and over for this talk, but the best thing to do was just show up and it would just come out. It always did. He hated keeping the truth from people and he hated letting things fester. It needed to be out there between them both, he wanted to trust her and he wanted Malia to trust him.

The walk wasn’t that long to her house and he wasn’t sure if anyone else was home, but he texted her before he left his place to tell her that he was coming over. He didn’t want to just like … ambush her or anything. He liked Malia. He liked helping her and he liked that she was here with them, but he had to know where her head was. Scott didn’t want to take it seriously, her helping the nogitsune because she didn’t know any better. The point though was that now she did. She knew. There was like no excuse this time.

With a knock on her door, he waited for her to answer.

Cora had told Malia that Scott wasn’t that kind of alpha but Malia didn’t know him like that. Out there in the woods, the alpha animal would easily kill a beta and that made sense to Malia. Compassion wasn’t a hindrance in the animal kingdom but Malia wasn’t out there in the woods anymore. She was here, living in civilization. It was so tempting to change into her coyote form and run back into the woods to escape the wrath that was sure to follow but she didn’t give into temptation.

Malia had hidden a couple of kitchen knives in various places in the living room. Just in case. Because if Scott was going to try and kill her she was going to try and kill him right back. Then she could be the alpha and she wouldn’t have to worry about the ghost of her past following her around anymore. She didn’t want to hurt Scott, she felt protective of him in a way that she had never felt before but she was willing to sacrifice him for herself.

She opened the door and didn’t say anything, just stared at him and waited for him to state the purpose of his visit. She braced herself and held the door open a little wider. “You want to come in?” Yes, Scott, come into my living room, she thought. She knew every place where she had hidden a weapon. She didn’t want to hurt him, she really didn’t. She hated him for a long time but it was impossible to hate Scott McCall. She just couldn’t. She wished she could take back what she had done to Stiles and what she had done to Allison and what she had done to Isaac but she couldn’t take any of it back. Things just happened and Malia had no excuses except for her own unwillingness to change.

“Thanks,” he gave her a small smile and walked in, but he could feel a little anxiety coming off of her. And her heartbeat. Or was that his? He needed to calm down, he could do this. He just needed to talk to her and figure things out. Like if she was going to turn on them … always or something. And if she was? What would he do? Well, he wasn’t going to hurt her, he knew that for sure, but he would then know that he couldn’t trust her. He would have to work with her more then. He wanted to build that trust, but if she wasn’t with them like he thought she was, then …

That was something he’d think about when he came to it. If he came to it.

“How are you doing?” He asked her then and looked her over. She looked okay, even if she felt like he was a little nervous. So was he. “It’s okay, Malia,” Scott said then and walked over, sitting down on her sofa. He didn’t hear anyone else in the house, but that could change anyway. Anyone could just come home, but right now staying in the living room was the best option. Not that he still thought of her that night in the bar. He was wrong and she was drunk. It was something that so didn’t need to be brought up. Ever.

“I found out that you helped the nogitsune.” He saw her face and he shook his head. “I’m not mad at you.” That was the truth. He wasn’t. He was just worried. “I don’t know, I can’t really blame you for helping. You didn’t know any better, you just turned human.” He stopped there and rubbed his hands together as he looked at her.

“Did you help him this time?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I barely talked to him at all.” She wrapped her arms around herself and let her dark eyes sweep the floor. “I guess he wasn’t really my friend after all.” She had relaxed the tiniest bit when Scott said he wasn’t angry and then once she had felt him out a little bit, sensed no aggression coming from him, she relaxed more. She already knew that he had found out. There was no way that he would have kept that from them. The Nogitsune had been the angry one, he had been angry with them all and of course he would use that information against Stiles and Scott to hurt them.

Malia had mostly forgotten about the night she had gotten drunk and made out with Scott. He was cute and he was around and he smelled good and he was her alpha and so it seemed like a fun idea at the time. It never occurred to her that it might be wrong considering she had already hooked up with his best friend once.

“I used to be mad. I used to hate you for changing me back. I hated being human. It is so hard.” It felt good to get some of this off her chest. She hadn’t expected him to be so understanding about everything considering this involved his best friend. Malia hadn’t learned all of the intricacies of human friendship yet but she knew that Scott and Stiles had a bond that was unbreakable and mostly important. It was so important. She could only liken it to the way she felt about Barry but she knew it wasn’t totally comparable.

“I’m not mad anymore.” She looked straight into his eyes when she said it. She was still too uneasy to sit down but she stood in front of him. She made another mental checklist of where all the knives were hidden. Just in case.

Thank God, Scott thought as he sat there. She said no, that she didn’t help the Nogitsune and maybe anyone else wouldn’t have believed her, but Scott did. He felt in his heart that Malia was telling the truth. And he could hear the wavering in her voice when she said that maybe the Nogitsune wasn’t her friend after all, but it wasn’t anyone’s friend and he hated the fact that she thought of the Nogitsune that way. But, he was relieved because the Nogitsune didn’t use that against her. That was a plus. Malia was alive.

“He wasn’t anyone’s friend, Malia. He just wanted to tear us all apart, but we’re here. We’re all together. He didn’t win.” Even if it was a wish that Stiles made that went horribly wrong, and the Nogitsune wasn’t going to last in Portland, it was still here though. His schemes were still pulling Stiles away and they had to focus on that and bring him back in.

He listened to her when she said that she hated him, that she hated being human because it was so hard but now she wasn’t mad.

“I know you were mad, I kinda knew you hated me, but Malia I only did what I thought was right. And even through all of that and the fact that you were mad, you’re here, with us and we’re always here for you. I’m here for you. That’s never going to change.” He gave her a small smile as she stood in front of him. Even if she did help the Nogitsune the second time around, he would still help her. He couldn’t just turn his back on her. Even if he wouldn’t have trusted her, but that thought was gone now. He could trust her. She was just still figuring everything out and learning as she was going, he couldn’t like fault her for that.

“So you talked to him?” It was obvious that he was talking about the Nogitsune and he wasn’t going to ask what they talked about, but if she wanted to share, then she would.

Malia was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that Scott was so actively not trying to kill her. Not that she wasn’t grateful for that, since he was stronger and faster he would probably win the fight which was why she had tried to stack the odds in her favor with the knives anyway.

“Yeah, I talked to him once,” she admitted. “He was a huge jerk. And he was confusing. I didn’t want him to hurt anyone even last time. He didn’t tell me he was going to kill Allison. He just told me we were playing a joke on Stiles.” That was also true and while Malia had known it was probably going to be a cruel joke, she had hated them enough to take the gamble. She didn’t hate any of them anymore. It had taken her awhile to get there but after the snowstorm with Lydia and living with Barry and getting closer to her cousins, she wasn’t so angry anymore. She was okay with the human part of herself. She was still just figuring out how to be a good human. Barry and Scott and Stiles and Allison and Isaac and Cora and Derek and Ruby all helped contribute to the person she was turning into. She learned from watching them.

“Did you really think I was helping him this time?” she asked him.

She hadn’t totally manipulated Stiles. Okay, so she had manipulated him a lot by timing her shower just right and just being around when he needed help. But she had told him the truth almost immediately. Hell, she had greeted him with a punch to the face. So it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given him plenty of warning signs that she wasn’t his biggest fan. But a teenage boy in the face of getting a chance to make out with a pretty girl couldn’t be denied. She didn’t regret her time with either boy but both of them had been borne of curiosity and nothing more. Malia had never experienced anything real. The closest thing she had to that was her bond with Barry. It was real but it was also really not romantic at all so once again she was comparing apples to oranges but she was starting to make connections and she thought that might be important.

“I’m part of the pack now. I wouldn’t hurt you,” she said. “Not if I could help it.” She had to add that part in since she had a ton of knives stashed all over the living room with Scott’s name on them.

“I didn’t know what to think,” he said honestly. “I didn’t know you did the last time, so I couldn’t really say that you would this time. Because things were different. And I got that. I mean, when I first found out, I got angry and I took it out on the Nogitsune, so I guess that helped. Kind of.” Which it really didn’t because Scott almost died because of it. If it wasn’t for Isaac and Allison, he would have died. It was hard to not think about the fact that Malia helping Stiles ultimately got Allison killed. He couldn’t think about that. And Allison was here and Malia didn’t know any better.

“But after I started thinking about it, like it was totally different then and now, you’re right. You’re pack. I didn’t want to think that you would betray us. Not like that. Or really not like any other way, but I know this is still new. All of it and you’re learning as you’re going.”

So it wasn’t just like Malia was playing them, the Nogitsune played her as well. She was just a pawn in his game and she happened to play right into his hands. But she knew it was a joke - but she didn’t know. How could she? None of them did. Scott was just glad that this was a wish and it wasn’t permanent. Even if Stiles was still going through it, even if it would probably be months until he was the same again.

“So… does that mean you just forgive me?” Malia asked, giving Scott a nervous look. She wasn’t really sure what to expect. Cora said he wasn’t like that and Malia trusted Cora’s judgment so she had to assume that he wasn’t like that. She wondered if everyone else would forgive her as easily. She didn’t think she had to worry about Cora. She wasn’t sure about the rest of them though. She doubted Stiles would be as forgiving as Scott. She didn’t really have any reason to think that other than Stiles was the one who had to suffer the worst of the consequences by having something else, something so twisted and evil crawl up inside of him and turn him into a monster.

Her heartrate returned to it’s normal beat and she took a deep breath before disappearing into the kitchen for a moment. She closed her eyes and took another deep breath before she walked to the fridge. She pulled open the door and grabbed two Cokes, one for her and one for Scott. She liked the sugary drinks and consumed several of them a day. It probably wasn’t the healthiest thing she could do but it was better than chewing on the cans, which was what her old self would have done. She was making progress.

She walked back into the living room and reached out to hand Scott a Coke. She noticed that he was holding one of her knives in his hand and her eyes got a lot bigger. Oops. Somehow he had found one of her hiding spots, likely the one under the couch cushion that he was sitting right next to. She would have to plan this better next time. This would likely be an awkward moment for anyone but Malia just froze up. She didn’t know what to do or say. Since she was still reading a low key and non-aggressive vibe from Scott she didn’t react out of fear.

“Everything’s okay, Malia.” He didn’t think forgiving her was the best way to say it because there was nothing to forgive. He just wanted the truth and she gave it to him and now he knew that she wasn’t helping him this time. That she wasn’t against them this time. She knew better and it showed. She disappeared to the kitchen then and he leaned over, reaching under the cushion, pulling out a knife. He looked it over and sighed.

Well, that didn’t belong there.

When she came back out, he took the coke and held up the knife. She seemed okay, but she just froze, giving him a look. “It’s okay. I mean, I didn’t get hurt.” Of course he didn’t. “It doesn’t go under the couch though.” He wasn’t going to think that she like put it there before he got there. Maybe she or someone else in the house didn’t know it was there, but from her look, he knew she did.

And the best way to move on from this was to talk about something else. Which was what he planned on doing.

“So, I took a few days off from work,” he started. Which … okay, he probably shouldn’t have but he needed it. He needed to make sure his pack was okay and that things would eventually fall back into place and he wanted to focus on Malia. He needed to. “And I know we were doing mornings. You know, training? But then everything happened and we’re going to start that back up. Tomorrow morning.”

He opened the coke and he took a sip before looking at her. “I’m going to get Kira there too.” Allison said she needed some help and helping the two girls out, along with Isaac would help Scott as well. They needed to be fine tuned.

Malia quickly grabbed the knife and put it on the table. “Sorry. Sometimes I don’t put things away,” she said rather innocently. She was manipulating him a little but she didn’t feel too bad about it. A girl had to watch out for herself. Malia knew that she had to protect herself even if it was from her own alpha. She hadn’t exactly been a part of Scott’s pack for as long as most of them had been either. She was still the new girl. She was actually pleased to know that there was a newer girl. Kira.

She sat down next to him and popped the top off of her own soda can. “I want to learn how to turn halfway the way that the rest of you do,” she said. She knew she was a coyote and not a wolf which made her different than them in certain ways. But she thought the same rules could apply. Some were special and could change all the way. Malia was special like that. Others weren’t so special and could only turn halfway. Malia had the opposite problem. She had been helpless with the kanima in part because she couldn’t make her own claws come out.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Stiles had told her that he knew someone who could help her with this kind of stuff and that was Scott McCall. She had never gotten the chance to find Scott before she had arrived in Portland via the wormhole so he never had the chance to help her with her coyote problems. She had figured out how to change back on her own but couldn’t figure out the halfway transformation. She raised both brows at Scott as she waited for an answer.

“Yeah, I’ll teach you,” he said. She wanted to learn and that was something. Actually, she always wanted to learn and he wanted to be the one to teach her. He wanted to have a bond with her because really, there wasn’t one. She was pack, but he wanted something a little bit more. He didn’t want to have to doubt her and he didn’t want her to doubt him.

“That’s something we can start doing tomorrow.” He felt his phone buzz and he pulled it out, looking over the message before he pushed his phone away. “And we can go over anything else that you have questions about. I want you to know that you can come to me. Whenever. It doesn’t matter what time it is. You know you can do that, right?”

She probably didn’t know that, but he wanted to put it out there that he was available for her whenever. He wanted strong communication even if the past couple of weeks, his was lousy. There wasn’t an excuse for it so he didn’t even think of one, but it seemed everything had just come at one time and it was overwhelming. But that was how it was and they got past it and they just had to get ready for the next.

Because living in Portland, there was always a next. He learned that.

She nodded at him. “Okay.” She was willing and eager to train because she had been more than a little disappointed in herself for the way she had handled things with the kanima. She should have been able to hold her ground better than she had and she definitely should have been able to elongate her claws so that she could trigger the healing faster. Her own human fingernails were hardly adequate no matter how hard she dug them into her skin.

“Are you worried that I’ll go to my father instead?” she asked plainly. She wasn’t dumb as she pretended to be sometimes. She had noticed Peter Hale’s sudden and unexpected presence in Portland. She had already been given the details on Peter by her cousins and Lydia. Opinions varied in severity but all pointed to one very significant thing. Peter Hale was kind of a psycho. And while Malia herself had committed matricide, she didn’t consider herself a murdering crazy monster like people talked about Peter.

The timing wasn’t a coincidence but she didn’t know if this had to do with The Nogitsune or Peter being in town. Malia had no real reason to want to approach Peter. At least not yet. She couldn’t help but have a certain curiosity about him but her relationship with the only father she had ever known had been very complicated. She didn’t want an encore performance with Satan in a v-neck. Maybe that was the reason why Scott hadn’t tried to kill her, why he was being so nice. Maybe he was afraid she would go to Peter instead. She wondered at that and wished she could take the words back now that she had said them. Some things were best kept close to her chest and Malia knew that. But sometimes it was just too late to take back the things you said. Unfortunately, Malia knew a lot about that too.

Scott should have expected that. He knew that Peter was in Portland. He hadn’t talked to him and he really didn’t have a reason to. At least not right now. Scott knew that Peter was dangerous and often out for himself, but sometimes, sometimes he came in handy. Just most times he didn’t and the only thing he could offer was a sarcastic comment. But was he afraid that Malia would go to him?

“No, I’m not.” The truth was, Peter was her father. If Malia wanted to see him, she could. He just thought that she should be careful and not really expect much from him. Normally, it would be hard to tell her that, because it was her father, but it was also Scott’s job to protect Malia. She was pack. And even if she wasn’t, he would still protect her.

“Do you want to see him?” That was the question. If she didn’t want to see him, or talk to him, then Scott would do everything he could to make that happen. He wondered if Peter knew who Malia was. If he didn’t, then everything would definitely depend on Malia. If he did, then Scott could guarantee that Peter would seek her out. He wasn’t sure how far Peter was ahead of them since he just showed up, but if he was saying that Kate was alive, then … it must be further. Because Scott had no idea about that.

Which that didn’t sit well with him either. Especially for Allison, or Derek. Or really any of them. He hoped she didn’t show up in Portland.

“I don’t know,” she said as she leaned back on the couch and sighed. She took a sip from the Coke can letting that sugary sweet taste linger a bit. She really had no idea how to handle this whole “evil dad situation”. She had to assume that Peter didn’t know about her or else he would look for her, right? As evil as he was rumored to be she hoped that he would at least look for her. Maybe he could explain how she had ended up being raised by a different man. Her her mother taken her away? What had happened? She wanted answers and because of that she knew what the eventual outcome of the situation would be.

“I think I have to see him eventually. I’m curious about him. I don’t know what to do, I don’t think I’m ready yet but I know I’ll see him eventually.” She looked over at Scott. She didn’t want to lie about it to him just like she didn’t expect that she would be lying to Derek or Cora if they wanted to talk about it. Cora, of everyone, seemed the most neutral when it came to Peter. He had allegedly killed her cousin Laura which was a problem for everyone but not so much for Malia since she had never met Laura. She had no emotional attachment to the girl she had never known.

“You don’t seem worried even though like everyone I know tells me he’s a complete psychopath.” She was digging a little bit but she had to admire Scott for holding back a little bit. He had a thing that Malia did not understand called “tact”. She had yet to learn the art of tact and lacked subtlety in nearly everything that she did. Whatever came into her mind, came out of her mouth. She followed her instinct more than most of the time.

She watched him carefully but mostly she kept her senses honed in on him so that she would know how he really felt about it. It wasn’t like to influence her decision on whether or not to go seeking out Peter Hale. But she felt like Scott’s opinion on things mattered.
Scott figured she would say that. That she had to see him eventually, which she would even if she wanted to or not to be honest. Peter was here until he wasn’t anymore, which … was how it was with all of them. They only had time at this point, because what he learned from being in Portland was that it could all end without a warning. And if Peter found out that Malia was his daughter? Scott would think he would seek her out. So it was bound to happen.

“I know. I mean, I don’t know how you feel, but I know that you would be curious. That’s just human nature,” he gave her a small smile. “And if he finds out that you’re his daughter, he will probably seek you out, but I want you to know that you don’t have to see him, or talk to him until you’re ready. And I’ll make sure it happens on your terms. I promise you that.”

He was serious too. It had to be on Malia’s terms. They didn’t know the situation, or why she was separated from him. Maybe that was something that shouldn’t come out, but even Scott was curious about it. What made him give her up? Or did he not even know about her at all? Like, did he even know that he fathered a child? Probably not. It was something that he hadn’t heard of, but it wasn’t like Peter to … well, talk about that kind of thing. At least he thought so.

“No, I am, but I don’t want you to be afraid. You know? You have all of us and we’re always stronger together. He can’t get to us and he can’t get to you. Not if you don’t want him to. I mean, he’s done bad things. He has. I’m not going to lie to you about that. I’m more worried about his influence.” Because Peter could talk and he was great at convincing if he really wanted to. That was what he was worried about.

And he was kind of worried about Derek, but he didn’t think about that right now. Right now he was focused on Malia.

“Wow. You think someone’s going to be a bad influence on me?” She smirked at him, her dark eyes glittering with mischief. She was a Hale through and through but Peter had always been a little off and like father, like daughter. But she knew that everything she had done couldn’t compare to what he had done. She did wonder at the idea that she was somehow genetically predisposed to following in his crazy footsteps. She tried not to develop any serious feelings one way or another about it so that she wouldn’t be disappointed by the outcome.

“I’m not going to do any more bad things,” she said but then quickly reconsidered this notion. “I”m going to try really hard not to do bad things,” she amended. Because she knew that this was a tricky business. She wished there was a compass that would tell her right from wrong and yet at the same time was relieved that it didn’t exist. It would only draw her own attention to how quickly she would always jump at the wrong choices. Malia still thought like a coyote in a lot of ways and while she was rapidly learning how to be human, it was an on-going process. She was wild but she wasn’t crazy. That was just her father.

“So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” she offered now that the matter of her father had been settled along with The Nogitsune problem. She was a little relieved that it was all over and out there because she had been holding onto it for far too long. Now there were no secrets and she could go back to training with Scott and his pack. She could only hope that everyone else would be as cool about it as Scott had been. She wasn’t sure that they would be and wasn’t about to reach out to Stiles to find out how he was. If Scott knew, Stiles knew and vice versa and that was a can of worms she really didn’t want to open.

“I think you have like an impressionable mind.” He smiled and chuckled a little bit, but he got what she meant. She was wild, and she said the first thing that was on her mind and that was something he actually liked about her. But he could see her changing too and he liked that too. He just liked her a lot and he was glad to have helped her and now he was even more glad that she was okay with him helping her.

“I’ll take that.” He nodded at her and added, “Yeah, you will. Nine tomorrow morning, at my house. We’ll go from there,” he said as he stood up. She stood up too and he grabbed his coke. He wasn’t done with it yet. He moved to leave and saw a knife behind a book that was on the table and he reached for it and handed it to her.

“That’s not safe, Malia,” he pointed out, giving her a wink. “I’ll see you in the morning.” With that he left and instead of heading to his house, he headed over to Allison and Isaac and Lydia’s house to stop by and fill them in.