A/N: The same events from Malia's perspective.

The banshee in the backseat asks about her injury in a matter-of-fact tone (and is that a faint scent of jealousy coming from her?) and it's all she can do not to growl back at her, hackles raised. But she wrestles her instincts down, for now, and promises she's okay. They cannot know of her weakness. She cannot detect any malice coming off them, only concern, especially from Stiles - she catches him examining her wound and her heart sinks. But he doesn't say anything, just keeps driving.

Malia breathes. She can hold it together. She does not know why the cut is not healing like all the others, but it will not slow her down.

Malia knows what happens to the weak and injured. It was drilled into her brain as a primal instinct, as a survival tool. If she's hurt, she'll be abandoned. If she's fine, she can stay with her new pack.

They pick up a boy - Derek, Stiles says, but his and the others confusion is so palpable Malia can practically see it radiating off them - and he smells of fear the entire ride back to the hotel. Malia is glad the alpha is riding with Braeden - he could sense her pain if he were in the backseat. The boy can too; she can tell by his furtive glances, although he's quick to avert his eyes when she catches him staring. But he's too scared to say anything, and the two girls flanking him in the backseat seem oblivious as well.

The pain is getting worse. Just going over a bump in the road made her flinch in pain, and she knows Stiles saw it. Over the past two months, Malia has discovered the boy is nothing if not observant; sometimes it irritates her, but mostly, it's oddly comforting.

They get to the hotel and Stiles grabs her arm. His movement is urgent as he leads her to a room - his, Malia notes, not hers - and she knows what he is after. His touch is not unwelcome, and she briefly entertains the thought of going along with it. But she is tired and hurt and there is no way she could hide the cut from Stiles if they had sex. She tells him as much, but he just shakes his head. My my, someone's insistent. She made to move away, but injured as she was, couldn't do it. His determination was admirable, and she tells him that she is not unwilling, far from it. But he denies her again, and the next words out of his mouth shatter her world apart.

"It's not healing, is it?"

He knows. He knows. He knows and Malia is thrown out of the delicate life she's carved for herself since waking up in a two-legged form instead of a four-legged one. He knows and Malia is out, moving away as fast as she can without showing the effects of the cut. He knows and Malia curses herself for ever letting her guard down around the boy who kept her warm, who was eternally patient with her, who was always teaching her new things about the world.

He calls after her and Malia turns. His hand is on her arm and his words are in her ear and he's offering to help, not to kick her out. Malia's world is shattered for the second time in as many minutes and she numbly lets the boy lead her to his bed. His hand is in hers and she clenches, hard. He's not leaving. He's not leaving. Thank you.

He brushes at her wound with a wet cloth. It stings, but not half as much as the thought of being abandoned did.

"Nobody has ever treated me like you do," she says, and she means it. In her years as a coyote, she was more of a loner than anything else. Other animals provided competition, not cooperation. Malia had a pack, once; it was early on in her years in the woods, and they provided security in a particularly harsh winter. But the winter grew too harsh for the pack to survive. She had watched as a pair of larger coyotes mauled the runt of the pack, and didn't stick around for the aftermath: she was the next smallest.

Even as a human, people had locked her away in some sort of institution when she told them about being a coyote. Stiles' pack were weary of trusting her, and Malia couldn't help but notice the looks they sent her way when she did something wrong. It was in those times that Stiles was her only salvation. He would look at her with a quirk in his lips and encouragement in his eyes and suddenly her difficulties with the human world were less of a burden.

But he has been quiet for too long. Did she mess up again? Sometimes she wishes that she never came back to the human world, and sometimes she wishes that she never left it.

Stiles shakes his head in reassurance, but he keeps his eyes on her cut and doesn't look up. Malia has never been patient. There was no time to stop and think on the hunt and the hours and hours of nothing are her least favorite thing about being a human. She presses him and he finally looks up.

"No one's ever treated me like you do either," he says, and she can tell he means it. She is surprised then, because she is the outsider of the pack, not him, and because he always seems at ease with the group that she cannot win over, and because he sometimes smells so strongly of Scott that she wants to bare her teeth and scream "mine" even though she knows there's nothing between the two, and above all because how dare they make Stiles feel like this when he is bright and patient and reliable and comforting and good, so good.

She closes the distance between them. If she doesn't have to hide her injury, there is no reason to refrain from any physical activities.