[ start of heart monitor part one ]

been enemies of the Hale's for years for only one reason. They were werewolf hunters, and the Hale's were werewolves. The Hale's hadn't stepped out of line, hadn't physically hurt any of their family, hadn't done anything to the Argents, however it was in their nature to hunt the beastly creatures. And that's what they did.

After arriving home from the unexpected events at the high school, Eleanor did not expect the house to be empty. She had thought Derek was in danger, she felt that he was in danger. However, upon walking through the front door, the only people she was greeted with were her two brothers. They weren't harmed.

And after a lengthy talk about what had actually happened while Eleanor was at the parent/teacher conferences, she understood why. The Argents loved to torment them. She had heard plenty of stories from Laura and Derek about the vile family and their disgusting hobbies, and so it only made sense that Kate made a little visit to Eleanor's older brother.

Keeping all of this from her friends though, had been proven quite the task. It was important that they didn't know, as they currently confided in the youngest Argent and did not want her to find out they were against her family.

"El, why can't you just tell me what happened with your brother?" Stiles questioned, following behind his friend as she stalked through the halls.

She flipped her hair to the side and tried to avoid eye contact with the boy. "Forget it Stiles, it was nothing."

He scoffed. "Having a massive electric shock out of nowhere is nothing? Nora, that's so far from nothing!"

"Just leave it, honestly, everything's fine."

Eleanor headed forward to enter the room for her third class of the day, however her stubborn best friend shook his head and grabbed her wrist, pulling her toward him in a sudden movement. She glared at him and motioned toward the classroom as he rolled his eyes.

"Everything is not fine! I do not call you getting hit by a car fine, which we still need to talk about by the way. I don't know about you but I am freaking out right now!"

Eleanor sighed as he spewed the worry from his mouth and frowned, grabbing hold of his hand as she spoke. "Stiles, you're human, of course you're freaking out about this. This is my normal, it's screwed up I know, but I'm fine."

The boy nervously fidgeted at the contact on his hand and scanned the hallway, realising it was empty. He glanced into the classroom, sighing in frustration as he pulled her into the room, finally letting go of the argument they had just had.

"Hey, what's going on with you and Scott?" Eleanor nudged her best friend quietly, giving Jaden a quick smile as she sat down in the desk in front of him.

She took this time to glance at Scott, whom was sat behind Stiles and next to Jaden. He looked relieved that both her and Stiles had shown up, however also guilty, especially with Stiles. She raised an eyebrow at the boy and focused her attention on his answer.

"It's nothin-"

"Stiles? Are you still not talking to me? Can you at least tell me if your dad's okay? It's just a bruise, right? Nothing that big - you know, I feel really bad about it."

While Jaden slumped back in his chair, watching the situation play out, Stiles yanked himself back to look at his friend. "My dad wasn't the one that got hurt."

One sideways glance at Eleanor was all it took for Scott to realise what had happened. While he was saving Allison, Eleanor saved Stiles' dad and got injured in the process. He failed to help two of the people he cared about most. He chose Allison over Eleanor. He felt terrible.

Eleanor did not see it this way. Perhaps she was too busy trying to get herself together after the death of her sister, the attack at the video store or the sudden visit from Allison's aunt. Eleanor was too preoccupied to think properly about what had happened last night, and that's why she was not overly bothered by Scott's actions. Maybe she would have felt differently in other circumstances. Stiles definitely did.

"Oh my god, Nora I am so sorry! I didn't realise, you know I would never-"

She waved her hand absentmindedly, her head falling onto her hand. "Don't worry about it."

Scott sighed in relief upon hearing this, and turned to Jaden as he nodded his head in agreement. Now it was just Stiles that hadn't forgiven him, and he needed to change that, and he had the perfect subject to bring up.

"What if I told you that I went to Derek for help?"

Stiles pushed his seat back slightly and his hand fiddled with the table as he mumbled slowly. "Well if I was talking to you, I would tell you that you're an idiot, but obviously I'm not talking to you."

Eleanor focused her eyes on Stiles and once they caught eye contact, she wrinkled her nose, frowned and looked back at Scott pleadingly. This caused a groan to emit from Stiles' mouth as he turned around to face the boy he had been mad at. "What the hell did he say?"

...

"Miss Hale, I believe you will be joining me at 3:15 for detention." Eleanor's head shot up from her desk and her sleep deprived eyes slowly opened.

She found herself in the middle of herself in her chemistry class, all eyes focused on her as she shied away from Mr. Harris' stern glare. She was beyond embarrassed. With all that had been going on, she'd barely gotten any sleep but she did not expect her body to shut itself down in the middle of her class.

The bell rang and Eleanor ignored the several stares from her peers as she packed away her supplies and rushed out of the room, away from all the obnoxious teenagers. She met with her twin brother as he emerged from the same classroom and rolled her eyes as he raised his eyebrows expectantly at his sister.

"Falling asleep in class, El. Really?"

Without hesitation, Eleanor completely ignored her brother's question and instead headed down the hall and out into the open air, for it was lunch and all four friends had agreed to meet out on the lacrosse field. Neither of the twins knew why, but they simply followed Stiles' instructions when requested.

They were a third of the way on to the lacrosse pitch when Jaden grabbed her hand and forcibly stopped her from walking further. "Hey, what the hell is going on with you?"

Eleanor avoided eye contact "Nothing, Jaden."

"El, I can literally feel that something is wrong. Why are you lying to me? What's really going on?"

Scott and Stiles had both looked up from their feet playing with the lacrosse balls in the grass and focused their attention on the siblings, whom both stared at one another with creased brows.

"It's stupid."

Jaden growled impatiently. "What is?"

"This!" She bellowed. "This whole situation! I don't know what's going on anymore, nothing's normal. I don't even feel like I pay attention to half the things I should and I have no clue how to help find the monster who killed Laura. Derek is somehow untrustworthy to Scott and Stiles and everything is so divided! I don't know what's going on with me, I just feel so, feel so -"

Eleanor unclenched her fists and avoided eye contact with Jaden as she sniffled, wiping away the tear that had silently fallen from her eye mid - rant. Her hands trembled slightly but she took a deep breath and tried to contain what little she had left to say.

"I'm just stressed. All of these things are happening, and I don't really know how to deal with them all at once." She worded her rant into a simple two sentences calmly, trying to forget about how she had exploded on her brother only seconds beforehand.

Jaden frowned, and now feeling guilty, stepped forward to comfort his sister. "El, I-"

"Forget it, Jade." She shook her head, turning around to advance into the middle of the lacrosse field.

Scott and Stiles, whom had just watched everything happen in front of them, turned away swiftly and aimlessly played with the stray balls like they had before. Jaden followed quietly behind Eleanor, watching her carefully as though she might break under the extreme amount of pressure she was enduring.

As the twins reached their best friends, Stiles abandoned Scott and took a step forward toward Eleanor. "Hey, El how-"

"I don't want to talk about it." She mumbled, stepping past all three boys as she picked up one of the balls from the fresh grass beneath her feet.

She chucked it up in the air absentmindedly as Jaden raised his eyebrows at Stiles' bag on the bench, slyly changing the subject. "What's in there?"

Stiles shook the frown of rejection from his lips and smirked, unzipping the black duffle, rummaging through its contents before he pulled a heart monitor from the bottom, chucking it carelessly at Scott. The brown eyed boy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion at the object, and shot Stiles a questioning glance.

"Put it on."

Jaden looked down in bemusement and Scott scanned the product again. "Isn't this one of the heart rate monitors for the track team?"

"Yeah, I borrowed it."

Scott raised an eyebrow and corrected him. "Stole it."

Eleanor took a seat next to Stiles and leant against him as she mumbled, "temporarily misappropriated," to answer for him.

Jaden and Scott both raised an eyebrow at Eleanor's action but Stiles merely shrugged, knowing that there must be some reason as to why she was showing such affection toward him while giving Jaden the cold shoulder. Maybe she finally wanted to talk about the events of the past week or so, either way Stiles didn't seem to mind.

"Coach uses it to monitor his heart rate while he jogs, so you're going to wear it for the rest of the day." Stiles informed.

Jaden began fumbling with the spare phone that sat idly on the bench beside his sister and friend, and flipped it open. "Hey, isn't this coach's phone?"

"That, I stole."

Scott rolled his eyes in amusement and smiled. "Why? What is this going to do?"

Stiles wrapped an arm around Eleanor, allowing her to become more comfortable as he informed Scott and Jaden of his plan. "Well, your heart rate goes up when you go wolf mode, play lacrosse, when your with Allison. So I figured that maybe controlling this whole thing is tied to controlling your heart rate."

Jaden was quite surprised by his friend's thinking, and saw no reason to try and stop the experiment, considering neither him, Eleanor or Derek had learnt to control this way. Of course, accepting Derek's help would be easier, but he knew that Scott would never opt for that.

Scott, whom seemed fascinated by the idea, had somehow managed to turn it into a comic book reference. "Like the Incredible Hulk."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Kinda."

Scott shook his head at Stiles. "No, I am the Incredible Hu-"

"Just shut up and put the strap on." Eleanor and Stiles snapped in unison, causing them to both make eye contact and share a chuckle.

Jaden dropped his belongings on the bench and helped Scott to slip the heart monitor into place on his chest, while Stiles and Eleanor stood up, providing duct tape to tie the new werewolf's hands behind his back.

Eleanor couldn't help but giggle when Stiles had to undo the duct tape and start again and Scott howled in pain as he ripped it off the skin on his hands, which seemed to put Jaden in a better mood, for Eleanor was not acting so miserable anymore.

"This is exactly how I wanted to spend my free period," Scott stated sarcastically as Stiles finished with the tape and backed away from the boy with Eleanor and Jaden.

"You ready?" Stiles called, kicking the abundance of lacrosse balls to where Eleanor stood, holding on to his lacrosse stick.

"No."

Both Stiles and Jaden smirked at one another and Stiles took his lacrosse stick from Eleanor, while Jaden pulled his from the bench, both picking up a ball in the net of the stick., "Now remember, don't get angry."

Eleanor watched on in amusement, laughing every time Scott would swear at the two boys, and observed his heart rate from the phone Stiles had handed to her. She didn't need it, considering she would be able to connect to Scott with her Empath abilities, but she didn't say anything. She didn't want to change his otherwise carefully planned procedure. She could only feel the pain the balls had caused a small amount, and she wasn't hurt in any way.

Like the lacrosse game only a couple of days beforehand, Eleanor began to feel the buzz in the pit of her stomach from Scott's boost in anger, but smiled at how well he had controlled himself.

"Fuck." Scott whined as Jaden's lacrosse ball hit him square in the chest. "I'm starting to think this was a really bad idea. Shit, man."

Eleanor shrugged as Stiles offered her his lacrosse stick, picked up a ball from the ground and dropped it into the small net, positioning herself opposite Scott as she launched the ball at him as he cursed. "Holy shit, that one hurt!"

Stiles let out a loud laugh and gave Eleanor a high five as she handed him the equipment back, obviously proud of her achievements. After all, Stiles had been the one to teach Eleanor to play lacrosse.

"Quiet." Jaden taunted, lobbing another ball his friends way. "You're supposed to be thinking about your heart rate, alright. About staying calm."

Scott sighed heavily, wincing slightly as more of the objects made contact with his skin. "Stay calm, staying calm. Staying totally calm! There are absolutely no balls flying at me face, none at all -"

His rant was cut short by Stiles' harsh blow to the chin. "Son of a bitch!"

The buzz in Eleanor's stomach had started to grow and her hand began bouncing against her side, pleading silently that Scott would be alright as Stiles smirked smugly. "You know, I actually think my aim is improving."

Scott scoffed and jutted his head forwards sarcastically. "Hm, I wonder why."

Stiles raised an eyebrow. "Don't get angry."

And the throwing of the lacrosse balls recommenced and Scott rolled his eyes, "I'm not getting angry." To which Eleanor rightfully raised her eyebrows to, considering the buzz in her stomach had now multiplied and was spreading throughout her body.

His energy was at it's peak, and as the balls kept hitting him, Eleanor could sense something was wrong. This sense was confirmed when Scott tried dodging the balls and struggled to state. "Stop. Can we just stop - can we just hold-"

Without so much as a pause, he let out a frustrated roar and suddenly the buzzing feeling completely filtered out from Eleanor's body. The three friends watched as Scott ripped the duct tape from his hands and fell to the floor agonisingly, and his breath fell short and jagged as they rushed toward him.

"Scott?"

As they reached him, Eleanor crouched down as he lifted his head from the grass. "Scott, you started to change."

"From anger." He confirmed regretfully. "But it was more than that. It was like, I felt stronger the more angry I got."

Eleanor looked up from her squat beside Scott and smiled as Stiles hesitantly stated the obvious, that the twins had known all along. "It is the anger. Derek was right."

Scott didn't seem too keen on this being correct, as he painstakingly admitted. "I can't be around Allison."

Jaden grimaced. "Why? Because she makes you happy?"

"No." Scott shook his head. "Because she makes me weak."

Eleanor rolled her eyes at his overdramatic reply and stood up, almost immediately feeling lightheaded, causing her to stumble to the side and into Stiles, whom caught her instantly as the three boys stared after her, wide eyed.

Scott jumped up from his position on the floor and Eleanor's eyes absentmindedly shut and opened slowly over and over. The three boys all glanced at one another, and Stiles held onto her tightly as they shuffled back to the bench, where their belongings were stored.

Once seated, Eleanor seemed to regain her full consciousness and glanced around her, confused and dazed as the boy's eyed her cautiously.

"What the bloody hell just happened?"

Jaden raised an eyebrow. "You tell us. How are you feeling?"

Eleanor shrugged sluggishly, leaning against Scott slightly as she responded. "Fine, just a little tired."

"How much sleep have you been getting?" Stiles questioned instinctively, his hand finding hers as he ran his thumb over it reassuringly.

"Not much."

Scott squinted. "How much is 'not much'?"

Eleanor sighed, rubbing her free hand over her face guiltily as she frowned. "I don't know, like an hour a night?"

Stiles' grip immediately tightened, and all three pairs of eyes stared into her as she sheepishly shied away from their gazes.

"Eleanor." Jaden called firmly. "Why haven't you told us?"

"I don't know." Eleanor admitted. "There's just so much going on, i didn't want to worry you with something else. Besides, I promised to help you through this."

Scott rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but that was before you were getting an hour of sleep a night! You can't do this to yourself."

"What do you mean?"

Stiles frowned. "You're overloading yourself, I did it when my mum died. You of all people know how that's not a good idea."

Eleanor looked up guiltily at the mention of Claudia and gripped his hand. "I know, I'm sorry."

"No, this isn't about me," He shook his head, "This is about you looking after yourself. You're running around trying to save everyone, but you need to save yourself."

Jaden sucked in a sharp breath. "Well that got deep."

Small laughs fell from the group's lips until he spoke once more. "But, Stiles is right. You've always been like this, you need to do something for yourself."

Eleanor opened her mouth to protest but Scott nudged her. "Remember what you did for Jennifer in ninth grade?"

She slouched grudgingly. "I gave her my money, because she asked to borrow some."

"Did you even speak to her after that?"

"No, but-"

Stiles shook his head. "What about the time you let Isaac Lahey stay at yours for three weeks straight?"

Eleanor smiled uneasily. "I would never turn him away, he obviously needed somewhere to go!"

Jaden rested a hand upon his sister's shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "What about the time Jackson fell off of his scooter in our neighbourhood and you took away his pain and gave him your energy."

Eleanor gaped. "That was Jackson?"