They all woke up at the same time. Cold, wet, alive, dead, they didn't know. They were in a large white room, with white ceilings and white floors, with white lights and white walls and in the center what they were looking for.

The Nemeton.

Right there. Looking innocent, a stump of an ancient oak with moss on its sides and dry leaves on its top. Not the blood thirst sanctuary of an evil they were trying to stop.

Scott was the first to touch it, the first to feed it. The first to remember. He remembered that night, when he and Stiles had wandered off to the woods. He saw himself looking for his inhaler, finding Laura Hale's body, receiving Peter's gift.

His gift? Hadn't he called it a curse back then?

Stiles saw himself scrambling around in the woods, protecting Scott from his own father. Taking his role as best friend up to a new lever - or maybe just doing the usual.

When had putting his life in danger become the usual?

Allison met her mother's eyes once more, talking to her, hating being the new girl, in a new house, in a new school, in a new town. Hating having this conversation all over again. About his dad coming home late again. And suddenly the boy they almost ran over that night, and how he forced her mother to go and see that he was alright. The boy they never found. Scott.

Had it always been about protecting everyone else from her family?

And they saw it. Witnessing their trial. Where they were proving they were the guardians to feed it. To give it their power. And the Nemeton saw the night they became the guardians of Beacon Hills. When they took the role of the Hale family and started protecting the land against the forces that were drawn to it. The last of the Hales, who had let the fire consume his soul. The broken boy, and the monster he had managed to control. And how they were willing to die instead of their parents, their guardians, in an attempt to try and stop the demon that had corrupted it in order to claim justice. No, not justice.

The Nemeton accepted their sacrifice. A true sacrifice, volunteered. To give it back its purpose: a sanctuary. To help. To protect.

To stop the demon from claiming revenge. To stop her from killing the innocents and feeding their lives into the roots of this old oak. For a second alone the Nemeton felt whole again, and that was all it needed to be alive again. To act as it has always intended: as a beacon of life, not as an instrument of death.

So he gave them their lives in return. So they could go and be the guardians they were.

And in one corridor, where she had been sitting, crying, mourning the deaths of her best friend, the boy that used to adore her, and the only one who had the power to protect her, Lydia Martin began to scream.