PHOENIX ━━ Stiles Stilinski.

𝑜𝑛𝑒

slotting in the puzzle pieces!

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THE ROADS LEADING TO BEACON HILLS may have been a distant memory for Lennon Phoenix, but as she passed through them now she felt as if she had only gone away for a week on vacation and she was now being greeted home by the familiar town. She had never visited in the past two years. It crossed the girl's mind many times to surprise her best friends by returning home for the summer but the pressure and guilt of having to lie to them about her ventures always stopped her. Besides, Lennon's dad made a habit of visiting her often which meant she had no other reason to return to the Californian town.

"I keep getting the feeling like I've forgotten something." Lennon said from the passenger's seat as she shifted her eyes to the back of the car, counting the bags for the seventh time that journey.

"Honey, you've come back with more bags than you left with two summers ago. I still don't know how they let you past baggage claim."

"I'm a witch, you'd be surprised the things I can get away with."

"Nope. No. No witch talk, okay? We talked about this."

Lennon exhaled loudly, trying to find the right words that would convince her father otherwise. "Dad-"

"Lennon, no. Not after what happened to your mother. You're only to use magic when you absolutely have to. Okay?"

The sixteen year old sat there staring down at her hands, hoping that this would make the man forget that he had been expecting a response from his daughter.

When Lennon's father failed to hear from the girl, he took his eyes off the road to look back at his daughter expectantly. "Lennon!"

Sensing defeat, the young witch finally looked up. "Okay, fine. No magic."

Lennon's father nodded, turning his eyes back to the road and feeling accomplished that he had succeeded in the first test he had been faced with of being a good father in two years. "So, are you going to pay a visit to Scott and Stiles when we get back?"

The brunette froze at the mention of the Stilinski boy. She hadn't heard his name being said aloud in longer than she could remember. Her and Scott would talk about the boy a lot during the first few months of moving away; Where's Stiles? How's Stiles doing? Do you know if Stiles has received any of my text messages yet? Maybe I can video call both you and Stiles tomorrow?

But after hearing excuse after excuse from her best friend as to why Stiles couldn't be there, including the classics 'his phone coincidentally broke at school today', 'he's come down with the flu and even I haven't seen him in a few days' - the girl gave up on Stiles Stilinski. She knew the two well enough to know that Stiles had been the one telling Scott what lies to feed her, and she knew that the McCall boy was also aware she wasn't buying them - even Stiles knew they were pathetic excuses, but part of him wanted Lennon to know he was avoiding her.