The phone rings around midnight and Melissa is tempted, so tempted, to just let it go to the answering machine. She can't though, years of being a nurse and a mother have taught her to always answer these late-night calls, no matter how exhausted she is.

Even though she knows Scott is tucked safely into his bed, she still gets up sluggishly and picks up the house phone, falling heavily into a kitchen chair before answering.

"Hello?" she mumbles out sleepily.

"M-Melissa?"

"Stiles?" Melissa asks, instantly becoming more alert.

"Uh, yeah."

There's silence on the other end and it makes her nervous.

"Stiles? Do you want me to wake Scott up?"

"No! No - " Stiles rushes out. "I, uh, can – can I talk to you?"

She doesn't know what this about. She isn't even really sure she wants to know what this is about. It's midnight, she worked a fourteen hour shift and she only fell asleep forty minutes ago. But this is Stiles.

"Of course you can, kiddo," she tells him, trying to express as much sincerity as possible in her current state of sleep deprivation.

"I just - I just can't sleep and my dad's at work and I don't want to talk to him about this anyway and - "

"Stiles, honey, take a deep breath." He does as he's told, albeit a bit shakily. "Now, what do you not want to talk to your dad about?"

"I – I just – it's not really that I don't want to talk to him, you know, but I don't want to make everything harder for him. I know he was really worried about me," Stiles says, guilt plain in his voice and Melissa hates that the kid feels responsible for things that were so far out of his control.

"And you don't want him to worry anymore," Melissa surmises.

"Yeah. And he's so relieved that I'm fine, but I'm…" Stiles trails off, sucking in a rough breath.

"Not doing fine," she finishes for him.

"…yeah," he whispers.

"Stiles, are you okay to be alone right now?" Melissa can't believe she even needs to ask this. Stiles has always been so happy, so bright, so strong. She knows what guilt can do to a person though and she isn't taking any risks.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm not gonna, you know, do anything," Stiles answers and she is relieved.

"Okay."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Do you think I killed her? Or him?"

Melissa closes her eyes, takes a painful breath and tries to ignore the clenching in her chest.

"No. Stiles, no."

"But if anyone had just killed me - "

"Stiles - "

"- if I hadn't given in - "

"Stiles. No."

"I gave up. I did," he says resolutely and she can hear the pain there, the blatant self-hatred.

"Sweetie, you didn't do anything," she assures him, trying to keep herself calm.

"I could have stopped it" and he just sounds so resigned that Melissa has half a mind to drive over to his house and just hold him and never let go.

"No, you couldn't have."

"How do you know?" he asks her desperately.

"Did you want her dead?" Melissa asks him bluntly. It's harsh, she knows it, but direct has always been the best way to get to Stiles.

"Of course not!"

"Exactly. It wasn't you, Stiles."

She can still hear him crying, she can still hear the way his breath catches and he chokes on sobs.

"You're good at this, you know," he tells her, voice raw.

"I'm a mother," she responds simply because it is simple. She is a mother, she can comfort, she's done it for seventeen years, but Stiles doesn't have a mother and she hopes she hasn't overstepped.

"…Yeah."

"Stiles, are you alright? Do you want me to come get you? I don't mind."

"No, it's – I'm fine."

She doesn't say anything else, lets the silence stretch, lets him control the conversation.

"Can you, um, stay on the phone with me? I know it's late, but just until I fall asleep?"

"Of course, kiddo."

She is going to be tired as all hell for work tomorrow but she doesn't hang up.

AUTHORS NOTE:

If anyone has an idea for a long story (any teen wolf pairing or gen) you should send it to me because I am holding a contest and will fill a 50,000+ word fic for one winner when I do camp nanowrimo in July. Even if your prompt doesn't win I will write you a drabble or a oneshot.
If your interested drop the prompt in my ask box over at tumblr:

(be sure to put camp nanowrimo before your prompt, i.e. Camp Nanowrimo: Sterek Prompt blah blah blah)

Thanks for reading!