With a high-pitched clank that Willow paid no attention to, Matthew placed a plate in front of her with a little too much force, as usual. Echo, who was sitting attentively at her side, twitched her ears at the sudden noise. Willow's half-opened eyes, that had been lying on the wood of the table before, scanned the roll that had taken its place and she then lifted her gaze to look at her brother. The 21-year-old's eyes were as piercingly blue and feminine as their father's but the sharp look he shot at her wasn't half as intimidating, so she mentally shrugged it off and returned the look with expectantly raised eyebrows. He grumbled a little at her little guilt.

"Are you ever gonna dye your hair back?" he asked and used a small movement of his head to point at the mess of hair that she hadn't bothered to tame. "You looked better with your black hair." Willow cocked an eyebrow at this turn of conversation – she was expecting him to bring up her nightly absence or her first day of school or the fact that she wasn't dressed yet. Or just anything remotely relevant.

"No," was her simple response that made her brother furrow his eyebrows. He hated her matte grey hair, he had hated the idea from the beginning to the end and had tried everything to dissuade her from getting her way with it. With poor results, obviously.

He sighed annoyedly and looked to the side, only to look back at her and raise his hands to help his point. "Look, Will, this doesn't suit you, alright? It's not you. You looked great with your natural hair and all you are achieving with this is drawing a lot of attention. The bad kind of attention."

She pursed her lips and looked to the fridge that was chilling at her side (unhealthily proud of this pun), contemplating the amount of force that it would take her to whack it over his brunet head. She'd had enough of these kinds of conversations.

"I don't care." She looked him back in the eyes with a pleading look. She really, really didn't have the energy to discuss her hair color at the moment. By the time she had arrived at home, the clock had hit 5 am, she had been awake for another hour and her alarm rang at 7 again which left her with one hour of light sleep. She was not in the mood for this.

"Are you being a rebellious teenager? Is this what this is about?" he asked in something that was close to desperation. Willows entire facial expression collapsed and she found herself in a very dangerous kind of mood. Her eyebrows were furrowed to the fullest extent and she could feel the wing of her nose twitch for a second.

"What would I have to rebel against?" she asked in a low voice, alerting her brother that this was a topic he better not dare to touch. He knew he shouldn't and he exhaled heavily as an attempt to tame his own temper and avoid saying anything out of line. They held each other's gazed for a few seconds in which Matthew realized that he had already crossed the line; she never looked at him that way. It was hard enough find an expression in her eyes other than glazed absence but here he saw a glimpse of a warning behind the russet of her orbs. He sighed and shifted in his chair, adopting a more casual stance.

"What happened last night?" Changing the topic seemed like the right thing to do. He saw the change in her posture as well as her eyes and felt relief wash over his conscious. She shrugged as she took a bite off her roll and looked him back in the eyes, pulling down the corners of her mouth as an 'I don't know'.

"I don't remember much. All I know is that I woke up walking down a road and a police car pulling up next to me." She took another bite and resumed with her mouth full. "They drove me to the high school where Dad and Echo were waiting and then he drove me home." She swallowed the bit. "And then I changed and went back to bed." Matthew looked at her with the wing of his nose raised in disgust.

"Gosh, don't speak with your mouth full, you're supposed to be a lady." She cocked her eyebrow in amusement, knowing he didn't mean it entirely. "But yeah, Dad didn't leave the poor sheriff alone and followed him wherever he went. That then turned out to be the high school. Do you know what happened there?" Willow shook her head.

"No, but it seems like classes are taking place anyway." She gestured at her sitting at the table. "Obviously." Matthew nodded in acknowledgment. The siblings sat in front of each other, continuing their breakfast in silence, just the way Willow liked it. When she had finished her roll, she got up and placed her plate next to the sink, and left the room, mumbling not so under her breath: "You need to shave."
She didn't hear the rasping of Echo on the wooden floor but was sure that the Labrador lady was following her.

It was the first time in forever that Willow actually took the time to scan her (yet) messy wardrobe for a well-wrought outfit and cringed at the sight of it. She hated when her wardrobe looked like this, but she has only thrown in bits and pieces of clothing from different boxes that hadn't fit in her suitcases. Knowing herself, she wouldn't change this mess for another month; although it did seem like she would get to it earlier. She had hoped for something like a magical fresh start, moving out of the big city and back in this little town she was born in. She was late for the beginning of the school year but this didn't bother her at all; it was last night's event that stirred her up.

She wanted it gone. This stupid, unfair tingling. She didn't know where it came from, she didn't know what it meant or what it wanted her to do. It was just a nasty, time-consuming nuisance. Most of the time, she did well with ignoring it and going on with her life, but then sometimes, it was so persistent that she had to give in if she didn't want to lose her mind. Last night for instance. However, whatever happened yesterday at the school had definitely something to do with it – and she would stay the hell away from that kind of trouble. As long as the tingling was gone, she was happy. Otherwise, she'd tidy up her closet; she was a stress cleaner.

Being dressed up for once left a weird feeling in Willow's stomach. She figured it was all the fab she was emitting. She had picked out a blue jeans that was ripped on the knees – fun fact, she actually fell and that had made her fashionable –, a simple and loose grey t-shirt as well as a denim jacket that was a little too big, and grey block heel boots. She tied her messy hair in a ponytail, put a laced black choker on and felt hella fabulous when she checked herself out in the big mirror of her closet doors. She felt her inner hipster today. The look of her russet eyes locked with Echo's brown ones through the mirror and made Willow twirl around and excitedly stalk towards the dog that was lying lazily on her bed. Echo kept her head down between her paws but her wiggling tail gave away her mutual excitement as Willow jumped next to her on the bed and ruffled her between her ears.

"You be good today, alright girl?" Willow purred in the most ridiculous voice that she could possibly put on. "You know you're my favorite, right? You know that? Right? But don't let the cat hear," she continued and nodded at her dog with every sentence until she pulled back confusedly, noticing the unpleasant itch that was creeping up in her throat. A very distinct sign of her loss of self-control. She cleared her throat awkwardly and patted Echo's head now awkwardly. Stopping the ridiculous voices was a serious issue that Willow just could not get sorted.
"However, I gotta leave. I'll see you after school, poophead. Yes, I've called you poophead. Don't think I've forgotten that incident."

A little wince was the response to that.

A few minutes later, Willow had descended the stairs without falling on her face and held the doorknob in her hand as a very familiar as well as annoying finger poked into her shoulder and made her turn around. She looked straight into Matthew's blue eyes which were looking down on her expectantly and holding up Echo's leash, drawing Willow's attention down to the happily panting dog.

"Haven't you forgotten something?" Matthew asked with a crooked smile on his face but didn't bother to hide the hint of concern flowing through him.

"Actually, now that you mention it," Willow remembered and smiled at him, "I haven't. Good day." But nah-ah. Matthew grabbed her arm before she could jump out the front door and looked at her lazily. She copied his gaze with remarkable accuracy and didn't even consider his offer for a second. No way she was taking Echo to school.

"No way you're leaving without Echo for school."

"Funny that you say it this way, because-"

"Will, I'm for real here. You're not leaving without her. What are you even thinking?" Echo sensed the tenseness between the siblings and slowly sat down next to Willow, clumsily stroking her leg with her face. The full-grown and frankly impressively tall dog was rather stroking her hip than her leg and allowed Willow to pet her back without bending down.

"What, and give away everything? What are you thinking, Matt? I'm not gonna walk into another school only to become the patronized weirdo that's gotta be guided through life. Nah-ah, forget it. You know I'm good out there by myself. As much as I would love to take this dork everywhere I go, school is excluded from that. Now, again, good day." Without having stopped to pet the happy dog at her side, she dropped into a curtsey and turned around to leave, this way effectively ignoring whatever her brother might have had to say (and was probably saying right now).

Matthew looked after his baby sister mindlessly strolling down the street, ready to strangle her. He didn't know just for how long he'd be able to uphold the 'nice way' that his father had scolded him to use when dealing with Willow. Sometimes, he thought their father was way too protective about her. She wasn't daddy's helpless little girl anymore; she was an annoying teenager now. A stubborn, imprudent and cocky teenager. He snorted before defeatedly shaking his head and closing the door in front of Echo's face, who had been resisting to follow Willow longingly by repeatedly sitting down and standing up again, accompanied by occasional whimpers.

"Come here, girl," Matthew sighed and kneeled down to her to remove both the leash the harness from her body. The latter reading 'Hearing Dog' in capital letters.

Willow better not fuck this up.

Okay. Okay. She had definitely slightly overdone the cockiness with her brother, but without doing so, he probably would've never let her leave on her own. Now it was up to her to prove a point. This was the first time in a very long time that Willow had left for her daily routine, especially school, without her little helper at her side. But she had absolutely thought this through and was convinced that she could go through high school without letting anyone know. Lipreading was a breeze and as long as she could see everyone's faces when talking to her, she would be good to go.

But hey, a little social anxiety never killed nobody. She was prepared for unwanted encounter with others of her species and proudly took the earphones out of her pockets, placing them in her ears where they were visible thanks to her ponytail. Nothing screamed 'don't talk to me' more than headphones in ones ear. Willow felt like a genius.

She didn't bother to plug the headphones into her phone, instead she tucked the end of them into the left pocket of her jacket in which she kept all kinds of useless little things that she could fiddle around with to ease the nervous feeling in her guts at times. Old receipts that were balled up to minimum size, little hair ties, bobby pins and now the plug of her earphones, too. She breathed in and out, ignoring the usual soreness in her tired eyes and following the way to the high school that she remembered vividly. Now she had to cross the street. With her hands being dug deep into the pockets of her denim jeans, Willow made the first mistake of the day that not even a toddler would have made.

Crossing the street without looking.

She didn't expect a car on these suburban streets, given the time of the day and the futile memory of yesterday night when there were no cars around, either. Of course, it should have been like that in the morning when people went to work, too. Duuh.

Obviously, Willow didn't hear the approaching vehicle, and the driver that was determinedly talking on the phone did not expect somebody to just cross the street with their back to the road. Seeing only a speedy movement from the corner of her eye, Willow turned her head to face the car that was driving right towards her, the driver not having noticed her yet. Willow's mind was completely blank as she locked eyes with the driver and the whole scenery started feeling like somebody curbed the speed of time. Willows fingers twitched while her mind started to panic; her useless, usually awfully slow mind was first to react for the first time. She had to move; she realized that, she knew that, she tried to act on that, but her body wasn't quite ready yet. She didn't know where to go; the guy would definitely change course or stop or whatever but she couldn't read what direction he would go. The whole thing played out terribly slowly, leaving Willow in the middle of the streets, wide eyes and mouth agape.

At least the boy seemed to possess some kind of reflex. The second he took in the sight in front of him, he didn't even bother saying another word into the phone. He instinctively tossed it over into the passenger seat, leaving his friend hanging, to jerk the steering wheel to the side and slam his foot on the brakes. His previously wide eyes were now shut tight as he car came to a rigid stop, almost making him hit the wheel with his head.

"Stiles? Stiles, you there?" the quiet voice in the phone was ceremonially ignored as Stiles' tensed up body lowered his head to the wheel to rest on his hands. Holy freaking hell. He almost didn't realize what had actually happened as he yanked his head up again to look for the awfully familiar-looking girl on the streets.

She was still staring at the jeep that had just passed her with murderous speed and was now standing still a few feet ahead. She gulped noisily and just… stared. From this transverse angle, she couldn't see the driver in the car but she also didn't really bother to look for him. She had never been in a situation like this and suddenly, she felt horribly small. Just a few minutes earlier she had swaggered round and about herself being capable of taking care of herself – actually, she had been doing that for years now – but only a split second in the actual world, on her own, and she had nearly perished. What angered her the most, though, was not herself being foolish enough to blindly cross a street, no; it was the fact that, looking right at the jeep's bumper, that could have smashed her head down to the concrete and left it as a puddle of jello, she hadn't done anything. She had just stood there, looking right into the windshield like a catatonic, frightened little deer. She clenched her fists in her pockets and lowered her angry as well as shocked eyes. She felt like she had just received a bitter slap of reality. She should just walk back home, who was she kidding? Angry that there wasn't anything on the clean street for her to kick, she kicked the air and grunted grumpily under her breath, not hearing the door that was frantically opened and then slammed shut.

"He- Hey!" Stiles screamed as he stumbled towards her, literally, balancing his falling body out in the last second and continuing his short sprint towards Willow who had still been staring daggers into the concrete. Noticing the rash movement, she raised her eyes and looked at the boy in front of her, panic written all over his face. He abruptly stopped right in front of her, at a proximity that Willow would usually entitle as 'too close'; especially when he started scanning her body for any injuries. Willow's awkward ass was royally flustered at that and couldn't help but duck her head a little to hesitantly look back at him through her eyelashes. She almost felt bad for thinking this right after almost being hit by his jeep but the boy in front of her, who was now looking right into her eyes with concern, was a hell of a cutie pie. Just a second after this struck her, the color of her face seemed to ditch today's job and leave; he was looking at her for a reason with this expectant look in his eyes whose color she didn't dare to label just yet. Her head went into overdrive as she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and stared at him without a clue about what he would like to know. He must have said something. Crap. Hadn't she said herself, as long as she saw one's face, she would be okay? To hell with her dumbness.

"No." Why did she say that. Why. Why. Actually, logically, it was the right thing to do, wasn't it? No meant no promises, no commitments and declining everything for him to leave seemed like the absolutely right thing to do.
He looked at her, a little taken aback by the weird way her 'no' had come out, something she was completely oblivious to; she didn't have the nerve to concentrate on her tone right now. Stiles, though, came to a different conclusion.

"Maybe you should- eh," she stuttered, jerking back and forth and into different directions while bracing up to invade this girl's personal space by taking the headphones out of her ears, so she could actually hear him and herself. She observed his weird movements with awkwardly furrowed eyebrows and watched his indecisive hands that were reaching up to the sides of her head; instinctively, she drew her head back, only her head, and just as slowly as he came forward, making her expose the familiar double chin that she had named Patty. Unfortunately, her spine reached its limits and stopped her head from moving further, letting Stiles involuntarily place his fingers around the little headphones in her ears and slowly remove them. It was only then when his intentions occurred to Willow and she said goodbye to Patty.

"Are you hurt?" he asked carefully, and this time Willow paid the appropriate amount of attention to the movement of his lips, strangely enjoying to watch them. She looked back up to his face, forcing a little smile onto her lips.

"I'm not hurt, I'm okay," she answered sincerely. "Just a little shaken. Don't worry." The forced smile on her face turned into an honest, lop-sided one as she raised one eyebrow with apology written all over her face. He seemed a little soothed at her even tone and took a step back, nervously massaging the back of his neck.

"God, I'm sorry, I don't know how that happened. One second I look away and when I look back, there you are. Seriously, I'm so sorry." Willow looked at the words that escaped his expressive lips so quickly, she almost couldn't keep up, and she was seriously confused for a moment: he was sorry?

"Are you kidding me?" an incredulous chuckle left her throat. "You didn't do anything wrong; in fact, all you did was perfectly right. I was the one who just walked on the street, I was the one who didn't see you, and when I did, didn't move," she went on, gesturing way too much to emphasize her words and guilt, which was, on second thought, not a too smart thing to do. She should do it the city-way and blame him and stalk away. But that wasn't her way, she supposed. "It's really my fault, I'm sorry, is your jeep alright?"

Stiles chuckled, a little happy that somebody was concerned for his metal girlfriend. Trying to be a little too smooth, he flipped his hand exaggeratedly in a throwing motion and smirked foolishly into space.
"Aaah, don't worry, she's fine. There's got to happen a little more to hurt that old baby."

"She?" Willow asked, her smile unsure as she tilted her head a little to the side and threw a look at the blue jeep for not more than a second. If she didn't trust her lipreading skills so much, she would have almost thought she got something wrong. Stiles' smirk froze on his face, the wings of his nose widened and his eyes moved slowly around while his mouth hang loose with the tip of his tongue out; clearly looking for an answer that didn't make him look like a weirdo in front of the not so strange girl. She made him jump out of his hectic thoughts by an entertained giggle that escaped her throat by the look of his face. He looked down on her, confused, taking in her rather funny looking laugh-face. The sides of her mouth were pointy in her wide smile and she wrinkled her nose a little. It was weird, he had never seen somebody wrinkle their nose while laughing but the face she made seemed oddly sincere. Seeing this as the perfect chance to escape the she-topic and avoid making an idiot of himself, he changed the subject.

"So, where were you off to?" he asked quickly and was happy to see that Willow didn't linger over her previous question. She shook her head like she had just remembered something (that being having to go to school) and quickly took a step back.

"Oh, crap," she cursed. "School. I have to go to school." Stiles raised his eyes in surprise.

"Beacon Hills High School?" he asked rather rhetorically, already being sure of her answer; Beacon Hills was small and the chance that a girl his age went to his high school was pretty damn high. He took a look at the watch that was wrapped around his wrist and raised his eyebrows in surprise, almost cursing.

"Holy hell, classes start in 10 minutes." His head shot back to Willow, a thought occurring to him. "Did you intend to walk?"

"Uhm, yeah, kind of," she admitted, really freaking puzzled by the time that the clock on her phone's screen had confirmed. She should have left like an hour ago; she really needed to watch the clock in the morning. Stiles gave her a perplex look with a little twitch of his head.

"You, eh… You wanna have a ride?" He internally slapped himself for the indecisive tone of his voice. But well, he didn't almost run over girls on a daily basis, only to offer them a ride. That, though, was replaced by an, admittedly, stunned look as he actually saw the girl nodding; usually, they ran off and that was something that Stiles had subconsciously expected. But paying attention to the current situation, she would have been an idiot for declining this offer.

Stiles' grip on the wheel tightened and loosened at intervals of seconds and he found himself stretching his neck a little too often. His gaze flickered to Willow for only a split-second and shot back to the road when he noticed that her face was turned towards him and she was actually looking at him. Okay. Okay. He needed to get a grip and man up here. There was a girl sitting in his jeep. A girl. In his jeep. He was already raring to tell Scott about this and watch him lose his shit and probably not believe him. Although, Stiles was pretty damn sure that Scott had no mind to spare for this happy little accident of his as he was too concerned with Allison breaking up with him. And of course, the full moon arising – that little detail was an extra for the whole luxury of drama. Having all this in the back of his mind, plus Derek now being a fugitive, the alpha being the nutjob it always was, Jackson, his dad, and all the horrible things happening at the moment, Stiles felt his tense body lighten a bit at the girl on his passenger seat. Even if her female presence did make him feel uneasy – it was the good kind. It felt good to feel like a teenager again, with trivial problems like what to say to a pretty girl.

If there weren't the little detail that she was familiar. It took him only a few seconds to recognize her as the girl that had went missing the night before. It was a little hard to forget someone with grey hair, or was it silver? When he had gotten home and tried to avoid questions from his father about Derek and the incident, he had neatly redirected the attention off his humble self and onto the girl's case. There wasn't much to it, apparently. However, his dad hadn't had a final talk to the immediate family or the girl herself to close the case, due to the little 'Derek is a serial killer' news, but she had turned up again the same night unharmed and that seemed to be enough for now. However, Stiles was still struggling for a topic of a conversation because the silence was incredibly onerous.

"So, you went missing yesterday, huh?" Stiles blared nonchalantly and immediately felt the urge to punch himself in the face. Oh yeah, great work, Stilinski, bring up the most private topic there might be. Willow's entire body convulsed at the words that came out of his mouth and she stared at him with wide eyes. How the hell did he know? Was she on some news or something? She knew Beacon Hills was small but this place couldn't be pintsized enough to make news out of her nightly hike.

"Uh, yeah," she answered, trying to sound kind of chirpy and not like she's got something to hide. "That happened." Great job, Maker, master of conversation. Her eyes flew back to Stiles to not miss any kind of sound he might make. He nodded a little too hard with a smirk on his face that looked so painful, it made Willow cringe for him. Now, this was awkward.

"But you were found again, so that's something," Stiles cheered with so much force in his words, spreading his arms, he felt like Coach Finstock when he tried to motivate the team on good terms. And it also made him hate his own guts. Could this conversation be any more cringeworthy? Willow let out a little half-hearted cheer that did sound a lot like she would like to jump out of this car and walk to school, instead of spending another second next to Stiles Stilinski in a gas-fueled metal container. And just for the record, yes, she would.

The next few seconds were drained in silence in which Willow kept clumsily staring out of the window, right next to his face. She felt horribly anxious with the boy in this car, especially at this turn of events and the festive awkwardness that made her want to peel the skin off her face. In comparison to Stiles though, she wasn't too concerned with the conversation's subject with the cute boy; she was dreadfully anxious of being weird. And weird in the kind of way where he says something and she doesn't answer because she dared to look away from his face for a second. Oh no, she was having none of that. She would not miss a single word coming out of his mouth, she would not be the handicapped weirdo.

Instead she'd be the weirdo only, because Stiles was getting terribly uncomfortable under her gaze that he interpreted as her wanting him to keep talking.

"So…" he shifted bumpily in his seat, his mind completely blank. Aw, come on, he wanted to have some intel he could tell Scott someday. When would something like this ever happen again? He wanted a girl story, too. Here was his chance and he really couldn't estimate how long it would take his dateless butt to get another chance of something like this. He was ready to raise his voice for another failure to take place but surprisingly, she beat him to the punch.

"Sleepwalking," was all she said, and she couldn't even tell why she felt like telling him. She hated the idea of somebody revealing her secret, her actually knowing very well that she was walking around in the dark, not absently roaming at all, and she wanted to put an explanation for it into his head to avoid him thinking about what she might have done. She also wanted to overcome this nagging silence that was torturing the usual anxiety of her mind, and of course, she did not want this boy to say another thing that will break the upcoming sociability. He was way too cute to deter her just yet.

"You… sleepwalk?" he asked gingerly, his body finally relaxed and his caramel eyes lying on her. She shrugged with a helplessly raised eyebrow as he looked back at the road.

"Yeah, sometimes. Not too often." For the first time, she averted her eyes to the road ahead of them, being deeper in thought than she should be. Thinking back to the horribly hurt man that was still present in her mind, she muttered: "But I get the feeling that I'll be walking a lot in the future."

"What did you say?" Stiles' head snapped back at her, looking at her with a tentative expression that seemed to grow solid on his face. Being in the middle of all the supernatural drama made him a little more sensitive and aware towards things that were a little out of place or fishy or just weird. And what she had just mumbled, or just the mere way she had said it, caught his attention on another level than just 'a cute girl is talking to me'. His eyes rested on her for a few moments, waiting for an answer but she didn't seem to care to react. Instead, she kept her eyes on the road and only looked back at him when she noticed his persistent gaze.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you say something?" She knew she should have never looked away from his face. She screwed her face to an apologizing smile and scratched her cheek. "I'm sorry, I was, uhm, kind of deep in thought." And the panic grew. He definitely knew now that something about her was off.

"I see," he replied, not sure if he should buy it or not. But she looked genuinely surprised and sorry and a tad embarrassed, too. "Are you nervous?"

"Hm?" she blinked confusedly, suddenly being incredibly interested in touching her own fingers and oh look, there was a new scratch, probably from the woods. She felt like he saw right through her and she hated it. But she was way too awkward to snap back at him, instead she kept fiddling around with her fingers and thinking of an explanation for her admittedly weird behavior.

"Yeah, I mean, kind of, you know. It's kind of hard not to be nervous, uhm, but I didn't think you would notice this easily. I mean, it's not nervousness," she laughed frantically. "It's just, you know, being in a strange guy's car, hoping I won't say anything stupid, hoping he won't take advantage of the situation and abduct me," and there goes another frantic laughter as she crossed her fingers and would very much like to stab them into her eyes. "Not that I think you intend to do that, don't get me wrong, you seem like a nice guy with his heart in the right spot and all but ya know, a girl's gotta worry. However, to get back to the previous question and the reason I am making a fool of myself: no, I am not nervous, why are you asking?"

So, just to be in the clear here: Willow would like a vibrant pink gravestone that would totally be the shit on the graveyard; also, she would wish for it to not say anything about her cause of death, because that was this bad, BAD conversation she was having with the guy whose name she didn't even know. Oh, she hoped so much that he wouldn't be in any of her classes. Scratch that, she would love him to be a senior and leave the school as soon as possible. Or, of course, she could go back to her first plan and just die. Yeah, that'd be good.

Stiles was just as taken aback as she was, although there was a puddle of understanding and relating bubbling inside of him. She reminded him very much of himself right now, especially when he talked to Lydia and rambled on and on about pointless things until he managed to get to the point. He had actually wanted to know if she was nervous for her first day of school but she already looked as embarrassed as it got and he didn't have the heart to clarify that. Instead, he just went with it.

"Oh yeah, I get that. One time this guy actually thought he could drive a detour to my house and I wouldn't notice. Men, right?" He swung his head towards her and gestured in an exaggeratedly feminine manner. The bright smile that appeared on her face made him genuinely smile. And it was only now that he noticed the tender blush that was residing on her cheeks, obviously emphasizing the previous embarrassment. It was a warm and proud feeling that was making him puff his chest a little at this satisfying success to cheer her up. She was eternally thankful for this save.

"Say, what's your name? I can't believe I haven't asked you yet," Stiles brought up, eyes back on the road. She was looking at him, visibly more relaxed and with a now soft smile on her lips as she conspicuously examined the side profile of his face. She liked his nose. She liked it a lot and she would love to touch it.

"Willow," she said calmly, her voice having turned into a placid tune. "My name is Willow."

Heeelloo and welcome back!

I'm seriously so thankful for the follows, favorites and the guest review that absolutely made my day! Thank you!

This chapter is a little shorter than I had expected and I had planned to put more into it but when I wrote this, this seemed like such a nice cut. So I'll put the rest in another chapter and upload it as soon as I can.

Personally, I was very excited to share these news about Willow and I had planned to reveal this a lot later but then I thought nah.

Also, I have a proper cover for the story now and all credits for this photograph go to the deviantartist michellis13. Check out her work, it's really cool!

Hope you liked the chapter. Let me know if you did :P