An Unrequested Gift - Teen Wolf Fanfiction (Scott x OFC x Stiles)

Drowning

Chapter 11-

Drowning

Penelope was hoping for one full normal week, and hopefully, it would come soon. She had left Scott to rest at the vet, having made it home a few hours prior at 2 am. The stress was starting to get to her, and even though her childhood and teenage years had been full of various stressors, she'd never been able to draft a healthy coping mechanism to deal with it. Her latest attempt at getting her mind off things was by cleaning. Especially since her mother's decline had seemed to hit the house like a hurricane. Penelope wondered how much of it had just happened and how much it had been happening. The realization that she had barely spoken to her mother since school started caused her stomach to recoil in guilt. The warning signs had been there, she'd just been so absorbed in their new supernatural stuff.

Her mother's bedroom was the worst of it, with clothes covering almost every square inch of flooring. Three hours in and she had almost finished all the laundry, and had dusted and swept the whole house. With nothing left to do, and so much energy still left inside of her, she decided to go on a run before school. It had been a while since she had been able to properly stretch her legs, and even longer since she had truly been on her own. She changed into a pair of exercise leggings and a t-shirt, throwing on an old, thin grey hoodie over top.

The crisp wind bit into her cheeks, her hair whipping behind her. Everything around her melted away until she was just running in a vast expansion of nothingness. Then her feet stopped finding any purchase on the ground beneath her, her legs cycling aimlessly in the air. A breath escaped her throat as she plummeted below, only darkness around her.

Penelope fell face-first onto the dirt floor, sputtering out a few dried leaves from her mouth. Sitting up, she rubbed the sore spots on her arms from trying to subconsciously break her fall. Looking around, she saw that it was still early morning, and she wasn't far off the usual path. Her phone began vibrating in her pocket, seeing Stiles' name flash across the screen.

"Hey," she said nonchalantly, still sitting on the ground, elbows on her knees. "What's up?"

"I've been calling you! Where are you?" Stiles shouts into the phone, and she can hear Scott say something in the background.

"I'm on a run, I didn't notice, my bad," Penelope pulls the phone away from her ear momentarily to check the time. "Is that Scott? How is he?"

"He's fine, you know, werewolf metabolism," he jokes, "but uh, maybe you should head back now. Meet at Scott's? Then we'll go to school together." Penelope confirmed and said goodbye before hanging up.

The jog back home wasn't nearly as cathartic, with the terrifying darkness still fresh in her mind, and she wondered if it was even worth trying to explain to Scott and Stiles. Surely this was either just a normal Phouka thing or a normal super stressed-out teenager thing. Either way, nothing to worry about, right?

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Penelope is standing at her locker when her two best friends come barreling up beside her, almost making her drop her books in surprise.

"How come you didn't tell us you were going to the formal with Jackson? Also how come you're going with Jackson?" Scott asks incredulously.

"Yeah, Scott can't go but I thought we'd still go together," Stiles said sadly.

Penelope frowns, "I swear I just forgot to tell you guys, Allison sprang it on me the other day and didn't really give me a choice. I think it was sort of her revenge for the incident in Coach's office." She blushes, remembering the event. Scott grins at her, clearly noticing her reaction.