Chapter One

There Better Be A Dead Body

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or BTVS, nor do I earn any sort of profit from this work of fiction

Beacon Hills had nothing on Sunnydale.

Fred Ackerman had been there for all of two weeks now and there hadn't been a single vampire lurking in the alleys or lounging in the cemetery. Not that she had ever really understood the whole "crypt" thing. Even Spike had struggled to justify it. Once she had pointed out that while cobwebs and crumbling stone lend themselves to the creepy aesthetic, but when faced with the prospect of eternity one would prefer comforts such as carpet, high water-pressure and wifi.

Basic human needs were necessary after all, regardless of whether you were an eternally damned creature of the night or a girl with a Divine Calling for a short-lived life of violence and attempting to get blood out of their clothes.

Divine Calling was a nice way of saying sacrificial lamb. How else would you describe the life of a Vampire Slayer?

It was supposed to be one per generation. One poor unlucky girl who got thrust into a world of darkness and pain and loneliness thanks to the actions of a few old men thousands of years ago. Until Buffy Summers decided to turn the system on its head and ruin the lives of 3000 girls in one fell swoop.

Buffy Summers. The original slayer who could've avoided the events of the past seven months if she had just done her job correctly and not allowed the First Evil to even get a foothold in this world. Let alone amass a cult of insane homicidal followers that were sent out to murder every potential slayer and her family. If Buffy had done her job Fred would still be in San Francisco blissfully unaware of the underlying darkness in the world instead of an orphaned child-soldier shipped off to war.

Following the battle with The First, Sunnydale was nothing but a crater in the ground and Fred had planned to abandon ship. As it was, she had almost made it. The freedom offered by the bus back to San Francisco less than three feet away when a rumbling British accent and betrayed cornflower-blue eyes had hauled her back. It had been a dirty move on Buffy's part, sending Dawn and Kevin after her. Even through the maelstrom of grief and anger that seemed to be the only thing fueling her tiny body, the guilt she felt as she stood in front of her Watcher and best-friend did more than Buffy dragging her kicking and screaming ever could.

Turning away from that bus back to her home, back to house she had last seen splattered by her parents blood, she had instead stepped towards the two people she had left.

Headquarters were established in Scotland in an old castle filled with teenage girls learning how to use their newfound strength and learn to protect themselves. And Fred had excelled. All that rage had expressed itself through brutal fists and bloody lips. Ending with the small blonde girl graduating top of her class and being relocated back to California after three months.

Trading the rolling moors and morning fog for Californian civilisation wasn't a hard sell. Despite Beacon Hills being smack-dab in the middle of San Francisco and Sunnydale - a three hour drive either way - Fred was fine as long as there would be vampires for her to dust.

Only there weren't any fucking vampires.

As the Spiderman theme interrupted Fred's pity-party for one, the blonde stopped short from where she had been stomping through the underbrush. Darting her eyes around she wasn't surprised to find that she was still utterly alone with nothing but the shadows of Beacon Hills Preserve keeping her company ever since she'd abandoned her post on Alfred Wilkinsons tombstone - great friend, excellent husband - half an hour ago. After so long, sharpening stakes just lost the novelty and Fred had decided enough was enough. With the sheer size of the Beacon Hills Preserve - the town was at least seventy percent woodlands from what she'd seen - Fred was beginning to theorise that all of the vampires in Beacon Hills were outdoorsy health-nuts who preyed exclusively on late-night hikers.

Fishing her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, Fred allowed a smile to twist the corners of her pink lips when she saw the photo lighting up the screen.

"Wow, I'm worth the cost of a call from Scotland - color me flattered."

"Nope I'm calling you collect," a chirpy voice responded to Fred's sarcastic drawl, "How's California? Is it sunny? Oh my God, I miss sunny."

"Well, seeing as it's almost ten at night I would have no go with a resounding - not sunny," Fred answered, the smile in her voice taking the edge off of her sarcasm. "So, why are you calling me Dawnie? Jonesing already and it hasn't even been a month."

"Ha-Ha Freddie." The inflection in her voice when she said 'Freddie' implying just how much she didn't appreciate the nickname Buffy had coined for her, "And maybe I am. Maybe the particular brand of angry white girl you bring to the table has left such a large void in my life I have resorted to desperate phone-calls."

Black-rimmed blue eyes rolled dramatically skyward, even though Dawn couldn't see her, and Fred stopped moving to slump against the trunk of a tree and drawing patterns in the dirt with the toe of her boot. Dawn Summers was Buffy's younger sister who was several months older than Fred, the two bonding during her time in Sunnydale and then Scotland. One could even go as far as to tentatively suggest that Dawn was her best-friend.

"And this is just your fortnightly dose of angry white girl then?"

"Weeeell," Dawn drew out the word as she attempted to sound sly, "What about boys?"

"Boys." Fred deadpanned. "I'm here to fulfill my Divine Calling, hold back the hordes of evil, and you're asking me about boys?"

"Yes!" Dawn squealed loudly enough that Fred moved the phone away from her ear to avoid a perforated eardrum. "If I'm stuck at Hogwarts School For Girls for who knows how much longer, then I'm going to live vicariously through you gosh-darnit!"

""Prepare to be vicariously disappointed, my dude," Fred told her with a self-deprecating snort. "There's only one boy I've even interacted with since being here and I'm fairly sure he thinks I'm a Queen Of The Damned groupie with a graveyard kink."

Four nights ago Fred had been perched atop a grave-stone in the only cemetery in town - since Kevin had emphasised that folding-chairs aren't a priority staple for patrols - kicking her feet out as she played Pokemon Red on her Nintendo.

"Take that you Pidgeot son of a bitch!"

"Is-is someone there?" A male voice called out uncertainly into the dark.

Startled, Fred found herself slipping backwards off of the gravestone, her Nintendo flying up into the air as she struggled to correct herself.

The owner of the voice arrived just in time to find her scrunched behind the slab of marble with her feet in the air as the Nintendo came down hard on her chest. Looking up from her position on the grass through a cloud of blonde hair it was easy to tell - even upside down - that he was well on his way to becoming a looker once puberty was through with him. He was tall and lanky still, but curly ash-blond hair and a jaw you could cut glass on would definitely get some girls engine revving one day soon.

"Hi," Fred's voice was flat as she greeted the boy, his expression of shock quickly melting into one of concern as he almost tripped over his feet to help her up. Grasping his offered hand she awkwardly untangled herself, letting him pull her to her feet.

"Thanks," Fred absentmindedly said as she rubbed the spot on her sternum where her 3DS had decided to pile-drive into her chest.

"What - uh - what are you doing out here?" He nervously rubbed the back of his neck with one hand while shoving the other into his jeans pocket.

"I could ask you the same question," Fred shot back with a cocky tilt to her chin, hoping to catch him off-guard.

"I work here," he replied bemusedly, folding his arms across his chest.

"I should probably ask you a different question," Fred stated.

As the boy continued to stare at her, awaiting an answer, Fred breathed heavily through her nose. "Look, do I have to justify myself?" Fred demanded gesturing towards him, "Are teenage girls not allowed to seek solitude amongst the dead? Is that a strictly teenage boys who work here thing?"

After a pause that was just beginning to err on this side of awkward, the boy finally grinned widely and offered, "I'm Isaac."

"Fred," she replied with a triumphant smirk.

"Fred?" Isaac repeated, brows raised slightly in surprise over the small blonde girl having a decidedly not small blonde girl name.

"Yup," Fred answered, popping the 'p' and refusing to offer any explanation about her name whatsoever. "Well Isaac, it's been real swell, but I'm gonna go now."

Isaac had simply tilted his head and gazed at her bemusedly as she gathered her belongings and disappeared into the shadows. Almost as though she hadn't even been there at all.

"Is he also a Lestat-wannabe with a cemetery-kink?" Dawn asked, obviously not in the mood for any form of subject avoidance. "If he's cute enough - it could be worth it! Buffy once dated one of those. He was all gloomy Edgar Allan Poe, death is inevitable, Emily Dickinson poetry-type stuff. And then she had to save him from being a Happy Meal on legs when he got his stalker on and followed them to the funeral home where some redneck bible-vamp was lurking."

"Has your sister ever had a normal relationship in her life?" Fred couldn't help but ask.

"Weeeell, there was Riley I suppose… then again he went all Mega-Super-Soldier and got addicted to vamp-bites so maybe not so much," Dawn mused. "But anyway, you are not Buffy! Just cos you're both blonde midgets doesn't mean that you're doomed to follow in her relationship footsteps. You are so not doomed, you are like the complete opposite of doomed. Doomed is off hiding somewhere because you are so not it."

"Dawn - quit saying 'doomed'. Seriously."

"Doom, doom, doom, doomity doom!" Dawn proceeded to facetiously sing down the phone-line.

"Okay!" Fred all but shouted into the phone, "If it'll make you shut up I'll pretend for five seconds that I'm one of your Gossip Girls in the Sweet Valley of the Travelling Pants."

"Name."

"Isaac," Fred continued without missing a beat, wishing for it all to be over, "Tall, lanky, blue eyes, curly blonde hair."

"Did you get his blood-type and Social Security Number too?"

Nose wrinkling at Dawn's tone, Fred opened her mouth to say something no doubt scathing that the other girl would let roll off her back like water when her phone began to beep. Pulling it from her ear a growl of frustration rumbled low in her throat when Fred saw that Kevin was attempting to reach her, his face gazing at her over the rim of his mug.

"As much as I'm enjoying this truly stimulating conversation, I've gotta book," Fred informed Dawn without a hint of disappointment over being interrupted. "John Constantine beckons."

"Maybe he finally caused the Great Tea Depression of 2011?"

"Knowing my luck, you're probably not far off," Fred smiled, ignoring the beeping in the background as her Watcher tried his damnedest to make contact. "We'll skype later."

"Looking forward to it - miss your face!"

Switching the call as Kevin called back a second time, Fred sang into the phone, "There better be a dead body!"

"How about half of a dead body?"

"Watcher say what?" Fred was stunned as she sprang up from her slouched position against the tree.

"That got your attention," Kevin chuckled, the sound rumbling across the phone-line like the purr of some large jungle cat, "The local cops have located one half, and are currently combing the woods doing their very best to find the other. Current theory is -"

"- animal attack," Fred cut it, "doesn't sound overly vampy though, does it?"

"Hemicorporectomy isn't common in vampire attacks, true. But that doesn't mean Cosmo the Cougar is out mauling unsuspecting joggers in Beacon Hills Preserve. My bet is that it's still supernatural in nature, we've just got to find out what."

"I'm assuming we're wanting photos? Since the cops are involved I can't exactly drag the body back to home-base."

"If you could."

"Sure thing, Q,"

"Good luck, Bond."

Fred gasped, stopping short, "Oh my God! Did you just make a joke? How much tea have you had today? Quick, count backwards from fifty!"

"No," he replied with an indulgent chuckle, "Stay safe, Love."

"You know me - if I were any safer I'd be hidden away surrounded by bubble-wrap," Fred quipped before ending the call, tucking the phone back into her pocket after firmly flicking it onto silent.

Breaking into a brisk jog she started back towards the main entrance to the preserve, planning on listening-in on the cops and finding out what they knew first. The preserve was far too large for her to be running around blind this late at night, the clouds scudding across the sky increasing in that way that meant rain may be imminent. The sharp scent of ozone cutting through the haze of sap and wild jasmine. Slayers may be able to function on a minimal amount of sleep, but tomorrow was Fred's first day at school since halfway through Freshman year. She had enough to worry about when it came to interacting with teenagers who weren't soldiers also, let alone being expected to do it while dead on her feet.

Mulling everything Kevin had told her over in her head, Fred was ninety-nine percent sure it wasn't a vampire. They weren't exactly into dismemberment unless it was ritualistic, and even then they weren't afraid to leave a trail of blood-drained bodies behind them. The smart ones tended to remove their victims teeth and light them on fire - not go all Jigsaw and request they play a game.

As caught up in her thoughts as she was, Fred didn't realise she was no longer alone until it smacked her right in the face.

No, seriously, she plowed face-first into someone's chest.

Stiles Stilinski huffed with exasperation as he waited for Scott to scramble up the bank behind him. Didn't his best friend realise how exciting this was? Nothing ever happened in Beacon Hills and now not only do they have a dead body - it's half a dead body!

No matter what Scott said, Stiles knew that this was way more exciting and potentially rewarding than sitting at home watching lacrosse videos and giving up after his tenth push-up.

Granted, the sixteen year-old still wasn't one hundred percent certain on what he'd do if he actually found this dead body. But that was a bridge he'd burn when he got to it. Despite his thoughts often running a mile a minute, Stiles didn't really think that far ahead.

Bouncing on the balls of his feet while he waited, Stiles tried to avoid looking too closely at the shadows clinging between the trees. His imagination turning every scrap of darkness into the villain of every horror film he'd watched in the last eight years. While he was moving it was okay. But now that he had stopped and the dark sky was growing even darker with fat heavy clouds lazily obscuring the moon moments at a time, he was coming to realise that maybe, just maybe, Scott had been right.

Only a crazy person would want to go to the place where a girl got literally ripped in half.

So when sounds of movement came from the opposite direction of Scott, Stiles' pulse ramped up to almost jackhammer volumes in his ears and his mouth fell open as someone ran into him.

Long fingers curled almost completely around thin arms to try and steady the person a moment too late, and Stiles all too quickly found himself flat on his back with a small body sprawled over him. There was a loud ringing in his ears, the heady smell of loam and pine thick in his nose, as he blinked to try and clear the rattling of his brain from where it collided against the forest floor. He tensed as slim fingers clenched the thin cotton of his shirt and lightly dug into his sides and the person rested their chin against his sternum.

Dark eyes gazed down his chest in shock, meeting the equally wide blue eyes of the girl half resting between his spread legs. She was pretty; blonde hair turned ghostly in the darkness as it fell over her face, shadows emphasising a pert nose and cupid's-bow lips. Despite himself his heart started a near galloping pace, to the point where he became quite fearful it would burst from his rib cage and into this girls face.

Stiles was no stranger to pretty girls. He'd been going to school with the prettiest girl to ever walk the earth since forever. Lydia Martin had all but ruined him for the allure of a pretty face seeing as seventy percent of his waking thoughts were dedicated to her. But very rarely did he have pretty girls laying on top of him with their hips pressed against his and their nails unconsciously tracing the dips of his ribs.

He could already feel heat blooming across the tops of his cheekbones and tips of his ears and both wanted to die and never move again.

"I can see up your nose," the girl blurted into the silence, her voice the chime of a bell forced into a jaded drawl and every muscle in his body stiffened. Her warm breath prickled the skin of his neck and face, she somehow smelled like vanilla and iron.

As quickly as she was on him, she was off, standing several feet away in less time than it took him to blink leaving the sound of crunching leaves loud in his ears. He watched as she breathed deeply and blew out hard enough it made her hair puff out around her face like a cloud.

Almost like an afterthought her eyes made contact with his and she blurted out a stilted, "I'm sorry."

And he proceeded to just stare at her, prone on the forest floor, completely unsure of how to handle this situation if it didn't turn out to be a hallucination. His hands were even still held awkwardly in the air like they were still wrapped around her arms. It seemed unlikely that he was even aware of that as he breathed heavily through his nose and tried to calm his racing pulse.

The further away she got the clearer his head became and he began to wonder why a teenage girl was out in the woods alone in the middle of the night. Completely disregarding the fact that he and his best friend were out in the woods alone in the middle of the night. He wanted to write her off as far as being the crazed killer ripping people in half - what with her being all five foot nothing and looking as though a strong enough breeze would carry her away - but if pop-culture had taught him anything it's that you can't judge a murderer on their appearance.

"Stiles!" Scott called out breathlessly from behind the girl as a beam of light swept haphazardly across them. "Next time you want to hunt for dead bodies, you're on your own!"

The girl looked over her shoulder towards Scott and then back to Stiles, seemingly conflicted about what to do. Every inch of her seemed at war with her fight-or-flight instincts in a way that piqued his curiosity even more. Who was she and what was she doing out here?

Stiles loved puzzles, and she seemed like a pretty big one.

There was the distinct sound of an inhaler being shaken before Scott took a puff and breathlessly demanded now that he was close enough to see his best friend, "Bro, what the Hell? How much Adderall did you take to make it seem like a good idea to make the severe asthmatic sprint behind you up a hill?"

Once he had finished with what Stiles believed was a slightly uncalled for outburst, Scott seemed to realise that his friend wasn't exactly alone. "Uh, hi?" His voice was thick with confusion as he glanced between the two of them.

It was as though his acknowledgement of the girls existence was enough to finally shock Stiles into action, as he scrambled to his feet and straightened out his clothes with a nervous energy. One hand smoothing across the dark buzz-cut hair at the back of his head.

"Hi," the girl replied, her voice firm and clear, with a large smile that was probably intended to be friendly but came across more as a baring of straight white teeth.

"Hi," Scott repeated, scrunching his eyes together in obvious confusion. "Uh, Stiles?"

"Yeah buddy?" Stiles responded automatically, his eyes remaining narrowed on the girl who seemed more than she appeared.

"Who, uh, who's your friend?"

While the girls smile twitched at the word 'friend', Stiles stared blankly at his best friend until realisation dawned on his pale face. "My-my friend?" Red blotches bloomed high on his prominent cheekbones as he switched between staring at Scott and the girl so quickly that whiplash was becoming a legitimate concern. "Uh, yes! My-my-my… friend. Um-uh-yup! Scott, this is…?" He trailed off, staring at the girl expectantly with his hands still raised from where they'd been erratically waved around.

"Fred," she supplied, wiggling her fingers towards Scott in a way that was both facetious and adorable.

"Yes!" Stiles all but shouted. "This is Fred! Wait - Fred?" He stopped nodding his head and instead stared at her with his eyebrows raised questioningly. A girl named Fred. While he of course wasn't the leading expert on 'normal' names, it was still strange enough to warrant a raised eyebrow or two.

"Yes - Fred."

"Just Fred?" Stiles heard the note of annoyance in her voice as he questioned her name and just decided to steamroll right over it as was his wont.

"Just Fred," she confirmed while bobbing her head with an air of finality, Scott eyeing the whole exchange bemusedly.

Stiles being Stiles of course just had to push it that little bit more, insatiable curiosity getting the best of him once again. "...Short for?" he prodded.

"None of your business," Fred replied shortly, folding her arms in a way that suggested that the topic was most certainly closed.

"Nice to meet you, Fred," Scott smiled genuinely at her before shooting Stiles a look that he'd seen often enough to translate as 'what the fuck bro?'. The fact that Stiles was used to this particular look probably didn't say anything complimentary about his ability to keep his mouth shut.

As he continued to demonstrate as he shook off the stupor being thrown to the ground by a pretty girl had caused and let suspicion - his Number Two Mode Of Being - take over.

"So whatcha doing out here, Fred?" he questioned with his arms crossed over his chest in an effort to stop his erratic fidgeting. His sneaker-clad foot continued to tap against the detritus covering the ground regardless.

"Late night jogging," Fred shrugged nonchalantly. As though it were commonplace for teenage girls to venture out into the woods to jog in the middle of the night. As though her parents had never given her the 'stranger danger' talk and she'd never watched a single horror movie in her entire life. And, as he'd already established to himself earlier, only a crazy person would be out in the woods in the middle of the night when a dead body had been found.

Stiles had to fight the urge to grab the flashlight off of Scott and shine it in her suspicious pretty little face. Instead he drawled an unconvincing, "Really?" while his eyes travelled down then up her body in a way that was less sexual - okay, a little sexual, he was sixteen - and more paid particular attention to her chunky black boots, jeans, and leather jacket. However his eyes did linger longer than necessary on the strip of pale skin revealed in the inch-long gap between her low-riding jeans and pink top.

Again, he was a sixteen year-old boy.

"Really." She repeated with a barely suppressed eye-roll. "I was jogging, remember? When I crashed into you? We landed, just over there?" Fred spoke slowly as she gestured to the disturbed ground next to them and pointedly eyed the dead leaves on his jacket. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head?"

Ignoring her insinuation about his mental-state, Stiles instead asked, "Don't you have school tomorrow?"

"And you don't?" Fred shot back, a bite to her voice that warned him to stop pushing her if he knew what was good for him.

Unfortunately for Stiles however, his brain-to-mouth filter and sense of self-preservation had never exactly seen eye to eye.

As he opened his mouth once again to question her motives further - never minding the fact that he and Scott were also out roaming the woods the day before school started again - he was interrupted by the sudden barking of Beacon Hills canine finest.

Sharing a frantic glance with Scott who hurried to turn off the flashlight Stiles' thoughts became all-consumed with making sure that his father Did Not Find Them.

"Hide!" he hissed into the darkness as the search party drew closer, all annoyance disappearing into desperate fear. "If they find us my dad will kill me!"

"Is someone afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Fred teased, smirking as his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed in irritation.

Scott gently grasped her wrist and her entire body stiffened before she swung around with one fist raised, stopping short when she met his soft brown eyes. Stiles watched as he tugged her back down the hill he'd just finished climbing, shooting a look over his shoulder that conveyed just how much he Couldn't Get Caught.

Turning to make his own escape Stiles made it all of several feet before he stopped short at the sight of Starsky the German Shepherd baring glistening white fangs with a heavy growl rumbling in his chest. As no less than four flashlights were shone in his direction Stiles knew there was nothing left to do except cringe and wait for the inevitable.

"Stay right there!" An excitable deputy called out as the growls of Hutch joined his brother Starsky.

"Hang on, hang on," came the resigned voice of his father as he drew closer, "This little delinquent belongs to me."

The Sheriff of Beacon Hills had a look on his face that made Stiles curl up a little inside as he gestured to the people around them to lower their flashlights. A short whistle escaped his lips and Starsky and Hutch quit their growling and instead yipped happily up at the boy they'd known since puppies. Stiles knew better than to give in and scratch them behind the ears in the way they liked, however. Not with his father giving him the Neutral Face of Disappointment.

"Dad, how're you doing?" he asked instead with forced casualness as his dad came to a stop and dropped a hand heavily onto his shoulder.

"You, uh, listen in to all my phone calls?" Sheriff Stilinski asked wearily, his blue eyes keen as they swept over his son for any signs of injury before returning to the increasingly guilty expression spreading across his face.

"No!" Stiles protested, after a pause admitting, "Not the boring ones."

Features smoothing out into world-weary resignation, finding it hard to even be surprised by his sons antics anymore, Sheriff Stilinski found himself asking, "And where's your usual partner in crime?"

"Who? Scott?" Stiles spluttered. "Scott's home. Said he wanted to get a good night's sleep before school tomorrow. It's just me. In the woods. Alone…"

Inside Stiles cringed. His story had that many holes in it it could be mistaken for curtain-netting.

"Scott, you out there?" Sheriff Stilinski called out, obviously not born yesterday and seeing through his sons flimsy lies. After a long moment of silence he tried again, "Scott!"

Being met by nothing but the ambient sounds of the woods at night being interrupted by the chatter and movements of his deputies, Sheriff Stilinski fixed his son with a stern look and the hand on his shoulder tightened.

"Well, young man, I'm gonna walk you back to your car and you and I are gonna have a conversation about something called 'invasion of privacy'."

Pained noises escaping his lips as his father all but frog-marched him away, Stiles hazarded a glance over his shoulder, hoping that Fred and Scott wouldn't suffer the same fate as the first few raindrops splattered against his cheeks and slid down the collar of his jacket.

A storm was coming.

A/N: HERE IT IS!

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has supported me during this rewrite. Special thanks to Cass (missjanuarylily) for being my excellent beta, and Heather (huntsthemoon) for giving me her opinion and keeping me sane throughout the writing process.

I absolutely cannot wait to hear what you all think! While the main theme and story is the same, there are a few noticeable changes (the POV shift for one!) and I hope that they're for the better rather than the worst haha

Happy reading,

- susiesamurai xo