Oblivious to the storm that raged overhead, Stiles Stilinski gazed vacantly at the wall in front of him, ignorant to the way the dirty floor he was sitting on groaned beneath his weight, as if it was at risk of giving way beneath him and sending him plummeting through the floor. It was a very real danger, considering Stiles was sitting on the floor of Derek's second floor bedroom in the old, mostly burned down, Hale family home, and in the deepest recesses of Stiles mind he knew that he needed to move...but the majority of his mind, and his body, couldn't bring itself to do anything about the danger.

Stiles wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting on the ground, his chin resting on his knee as he stared catatonically at Derek's bedroom wall...minutes...hours...days. The passing of time had become a blur...it meant absolutely nothing to him. There wasn't anything left in the world that meant something to him. There was only pain and grief and guilt and death.

Everyone was gone. Erica and Boyd were killed by the Alpha pack, Jackson was killed, alone, by a hunter in London, Cora was with her pack in South America, Allison and Aidan were killed by the Oni under the order of the Nogitsune possessed Stiles. Malia and Peter were killed by Kate Argent, who was killed by Chris Argent, who got killed by a drunk driver of all things.

That was when SHE arrived in town. A Necromancer with more talent in her little finger that Deaton had in his entire body. He had been the first one taken out. Kira's parents were murdered the same night. It seemed that the Necromancer wanted to obliterate every single member of the pack and those they were affiliated with. Even the new Deputy, Jordan Parrish, who had helped Stiles' dad cover up a few supernatural investigations, and was seriously considering joining the pack legit, had been killed, his body found dumped in the river.

It seemed only natural that Stiles' dad and Scott's mom were the next to pay the price for being dragged into the supernatural world by their sons, dying in each other's arms as they were trapped in the McCall family home, eerily similar to the way Derek had lost his entire family.

Powerless, Scott and Stiles had watched on as the Necromancer had firebombed the McCall family home, unable to get to the house thanks to the Necromancer's zombie like cronies who were very difficult to fight and kill.

A week later Lydia was killed when the necromancer blew up half of Beacon Hills high, along with Isaac, Coach Finstock, Lydia's mom, Danny, Ethan, and severely injuring Scott. Even Liam, Scott's newly bitten beta, still only a freshman, had been killed in the blast. Stiles still vividly remembered the charred smell of Scott's skin as he dragged himself free from the burning ruins, Lydia's final banshee scream still echoing in his ears.

Kira, Stiles and Derek had taken Scott and hidden out in the caves beneath the Hale house, where Kate Argent had once tortured Derek, while Scott healed from his wounds, although grief and the shock of loosing so many members of the pack had taken its toll, not only on Scott, but the others as well.

They'd lasted a few days before they were ambushed, close to the Nemeton. Stiles had taken a blow to the head not long into the battle, and he'd been knocked out. When he'd regained consciousness the woods had been quiet and still, eerily so, as if nothing living was within a mile of that place except for Stiles.

It became apparent Scott and Kira had been able to destroy the Necromancer, but not without a heavy price. They both lay not far from Stiles, obviously dead by the pallor of the skin. Derek lay partially on top of Stiles, his gurgled breaths laboured and weakening rapidly. Stiles blinked back tears as he remembered those last few minutes between him regaining consciousness and Derek dying in his arms, his abdomen and chest practically shredded by a spell cast by the Necromancer. Stiles had been the only one of the pack still alive to hold Derek as he died, trying to speed up Derek's innate healing powers, even though the logical side of his brain, the part that sounded like Lydia, was telling him that it was hopeless...that Derek was as good as dead, even with his werewolf healing.

"Stiles...you...you have to keep going...don't...don't give up." Derek had croaked out in between coughing up mouthfuls of blood. Stiles had sobbed and shaken his head, knowing that, without his dad, the pack, and Scott's mom, he didn't have anything worth going on for. Everyone he had ever cared about or loved was dead or dying (in Derek's case), and Stiles had nowhere to go to. Beacon Hills was the only home he'd ever known, and there would be nothing left for him there once Derek died.

"Don't leave me," Stiles had begged Derek, "Don't go. Derek, come on, please don't leave me. I don't want to be alone. You can do this; just...just don't die on me...please. I can't lose you too."

"I'm sorry Stiles," Derek had whispered, his lips stained with blood, before he exhaled one last time, and went limp. Stiles had pressed his fingers to Derek's neck, searching in vain for a pulse, but he was unable to find one. Derek, the second last member of both the McCall Pack and the Hale Pack, was dead.

Alone, Stiles had dug graves for Scott, Kira and Derek, in a clearing not far from the Hale house, as far from the Nemeton as possible, burying them the same way Derek had buried Laura's remains, with the wolfsbane spiral surrounding the grave. He buried Scott and Derek next to one another...finally the pack brothers that Derek had tried to make them be from day one. Kira was buried on Scott's other side, the young lovers together forever.

Single handily, Stiles had carried them from the Nemeton to the clearing, not trusting himself to go into Beacon Hills and getting help, or even reporting the deaths. It wasn't like anyone would care about three missing teenagers and the reclusive Derek Hale...not after the bombing of the high school and everything else that had been happening in the town. If anyone saw Stiles he'd probably be arrested or be attacked by a lynch mob of people who had realised there was a connection between all the stuff that had happened in the town, and Stiles and his friends.

Since that fateful day when he'd buried what was left of his family, Stiles hadn't left the ruins of the Hale mansion, unable to draw himself out of his grief to consider moving from his current position. Occasionally he'd eat, or sleep, but the food tasted like ash in his mouth, and even the shortest nap ended in vivid nightmares that left Stiles screaming, although there was no-one around to hear it.

The day after Derek died Stiles' phone rang for the first time since the school had blown up. It had been Cora, demanding Stiles give her news about what the hell was going on in Beacon Hills. She'd felt Derek's death through their old pack bond, weak as it was, and was overcome with grief at her brother's death. Stiles had quietly told her everything that had happened since she'd left town, his voice shaking, thick with emotions that he couldn't even begin to bring himself to come to terms with, before staying quiet as Cora ranted screaming insults down the phone at Stiles, blaming him for the death of everyone, not just Derek, but Peter and Malia, Scott and Lydia and Allison and Isaac as well. Stiles took it all in, a place in his head accepting every word Cora said as fact. In his heart he'd always felt that his mother's death was his fault, and Allison and Aidan's was definitely his fault as well. Why not add Derek and Scott and everyone else to the list?

Eventually, having run out of insults for Stiles, Cora had told him that if she ever saw him again, she would personally kill him, before hanging up. Stiles had taken his battery out of his phone after that. Cora was the only one left he'd had to contact. Now there was no-one.

One day rolled into the next, a storm front causing heavy rains and loud thunderstorms over Beacon Hills. Stiles stayed where he was in the old Hale family house, even though the roof leaked and everything was covered in dust

Before Stiles knew it a week had passed, and the passing of time had taken a heavy toll on Stiles' body. Stiles' weight, already lower than normal from gus possession by the Nogitsune, had plummeted, leaving Stiles looking near skeletal, his ribs and hip bones jutting out, his skin stretched over the bone. Dark shadows marked the skin beneath his eyes like giant bruises in the skin. In the reflection of one of the few windows in the house that isn't broken Stiles could tell that he looked eerily like what he had donewhen he was possessed.

Mentally too Stiles knew he was losing his grip. He'd started nervously counting his fingers again; something that he'd stopped doing a couple of weeks after the possession. Aside from screaming in his sleep he was silent, going longer without talking than he had since infancy, and even then he'd babbled away a lot, even though it wasn't recognizable words. He hadn't even been this quiet when his mother had died...mainly because Scott had been there to stop him from being completely overwhelmed by his grief. Now though Scott wasn't there to help him.

A couple of times Stiles considered ending it all. They had some guns at the house; his dad's spare was one of them. Stiles knew how to load it, and it would be easy for him to put a bullet in his head. They had knives too. Kira's katana was buried with her, but they had other knives that would be just as effective at ending Stiles' life, just as he'd been prepared to do to defeat the Nogitsune. The Jeep was parked outside the house, and Stiles knew the tank was full. He could siphon fuel from the tank and pour it over himself and then light a match, just like Scott had tried that horrible night at the motel. He could jump off the roof, or walk to the river and drown himself there. He could drive off the cliff at the lookout, if he wanted to go that way. The opportunities were endless. Stiles was only a human...he was very fragile and easy to kill. He'd learned that from watching so many of his friends and family be taken away.

Every time he considered the possibility of ending his life, however, there was a part of Stiles that refused to let him give up, that made him keep fighting, to live on for those who couldn't. With every day that passed that part of him grew weaker, but it was still there. Suicide wasn't an option...not yet anyway.

Still, Stiles knew that he couldn't stay at the Hale House for much longer. It was only going to be a matter of time before somebody noticed something and reported it to the police. Every single person who worked at the Beacon County Sherriff's office knew Stiles' jeep on sight, and Stiles knew that he'd be dragged back into town if he was found.

And staying in Beacon Hills was simply not an option.

Ten days after Scott, Kira and Derek died; Stiles finally crept out of the Hale House. It was still raining heavily, just like it had been for the last week and a half, but Stiles didn't care. The ground outside the Hale house was muddy, and Stiles noted that the Jeep had sunk a little into the mud. It was lucky that he had no intention of taking the Jeep with him, because getting it out of the mud on his own would have been difficult.

Leaving his backpack on the front porch, Stiles stepped out into the rain, approaching the battered blue Jeep. He put his hand on the cold metal, wiping away raindrops.

"We had a good run, didn't we Roscoe...A lot of good memories? A lot of crap memories too, I guess" Stiles croaked out, his voice scratch from lack of use, and from the emotions that made Stiles' voice tight. The blue Jeep had once belonged to his mother. It had been the car that his parents had used to bring him home from the hospital. Stiles had dreamed of the day when he would finally turn 16 and be able to claim Roscoe as being his. Tears rolled down his face as Stiles was overcome with emotions, and he leaned his head forward, resting it against the bonnet, oblivious to the fact that he was steadily being drenched by the heavy rain.

Stiles cried for what felt like hours, crying for his mother and father, for Derek, for Scott and Melissa, for Allison and Lydia, for Erica and Boyd, for Isaac and Jackson, for Malia and Liam, for Coach Finstock and Greenberg, for Ethan and Aidan...even for Peter.

"I'm sorry," Stiles sobbed, "I'm sorry I'm leaving you behind, Roscoe. Maybe you'll find a new home and you won't have to deal with a spazz like me that drives you into trees or picks up werewolves that have been shot and leave blood all over the seats. I just...I can't stay here...and I don't know if I can take you where I'm going. I'm going to miss you Roscoe."

Stiles patted the bonnet of the jeep twice, before he turned and picked up his backpack, loaded up with a change of clothes, Stiles' wallet, his laptop, complete with the fully up to date Bestiary that he, Lydia and Allison had worked so hard on, safe within its heavily padded waterproof case, as well as the small satchel of herbs and oils that Derek had collected from Deaton's office after the vet had been killed. Stiles also had a couple of protein bars, his favourite supernatural reference book, and the photo album that Lydia had given him for Christmas, filled with photos of Stiles' family and the pack.

Looking up at the house, Stiles swallowed, memories of the pack, both good and bad, washing over him.

"I'm gonna miss you guys," Stiles croaked out, turning his back on the house and beginning to walk away from it. He looked over his shoulder once, back towards the spot where Derek, Scott and Kira were buried, before he wiped his eyes one last time and walked away from the house, knowing that, in all likelihood, he probably never come back.

Trekking through the forest, Stiles walked north, knowing that he would eventually reach the next largest town in Beacon County, after Beacon Hills itself, where he would be able to get a bus out to Sacramento. Where he went after that, he wasn't sure.

The trees were dense in this part of the preservation, and the path was slippery and muddy due to the rain that continued to fall from the sky. Within minutes Stiles was completely drenched and lightly shivering, his malnourished body unable to regulate his body temperature in these conditions. The ground in front of Stiles tilted, and he belatedly realised that maybe attempting the fourteen mile journey while he had been barely eating and sleeping for over a week maybe hadn't been one of his best ideas. Determined, however, Stiles pressed on, ignoring the way he stumbled over hidden roots and rocks and fallen tree branches, slipping and sliding in the mud.

Stiles was about six miles into his journey when the inevitable happened. The rain falling from the sky had left Stiles drenched and shivering from the cold, early signs of hyperthermia settling in, although Stiles could do little about it. His spare change of clothes would probably be just as wet as what he was. Exhaustion and starvation had also taken a heavy toll, Stiles' vision blurring and tilting dangerously, darkness building in the corners of his eyes, like dark grey cobwebs that progressively became thicker and thicker and took up more and more of Stiles' vision in between blinks. Stiles was no longer walking north, but instead spiralling around as if he were lost, going in circles, staggering around the preservation as if he was drunk.

It was while Stiles was walking along a narrow dirt path that went along the top of a steep decline that he finally fell, his feet slipping out from beneath him and sending him rolling down the hill. Stiles squeezed his eyes shut until he'd stopped moving, lying in the mud at the bottom of the hill.

His body aching, Stiles bit his lip and began slowly testing his body out for any injuries. His shoulder was sore, and Stiles suspected that he'd have a good bruise there in the not so distant future. His side hurt from where he'd landed on a rock at some point during his tumble, but Stiles guessed that at most he'd bruised one of his ribs. There was a shallow gash to his knee, and his head was throbbing keenly, although Stiles wasn't sure if that was the result of the fall, or if his exhaustion and malnutrition was the culprit. Still, considering the fall, Stiles had escaped without too many serious injuries.

Wincing as his sore shoulder and side protested the movement, Stiles sat up and removed his back pack, planning on checking how the things inside had fared. He'd packed it so that his spare clothes had been offering additional protection to the breakables, but it had been a nasty tumble.

Thankfully the rain had briefly stopped, allowing Stiles to risk opening up the bag to inspect the damage. Luckily Stiles' laptop, protected by his spare clothes and the waterproof padded case appeared to have survived the tumble without damage. The same could not be said for the box of various herb and plant filled jars and vials that Derek had collected from Deaton's just after the emissary's death, to prevent it falling into the hands of the Necromancer. Two of the jars had smashed, their contents mixing together in the bottom of the box.

"Shit," Stiles swore when he took in the damage, dipping his hand into the box to scoop some of the combined powders in his hand, letting it trickle through his fingers. There was a little voice in the back of his head, one that sounded like Derek, screaming at him, telling him that putting his hand into unknown substances was a stupid idea, but Stiles disregarded it, watching transfixed as the powder trickle through his fingers. Never before in his life had Stiles ever felt so alone than he had in that moment, sitting in the middle of the preservation, alone and absolutely drenched.

"I wish that none of this had happened," Stiles whispered, tears filling his eyes as he spoke, "I wish that none of them had died. Dad and Melissa, Derek and Scott and Kira, Lydia and Allison, Isaac, Erica and Boyd, Liam and Malia and Deaton, even Jackson. I wish that Derek didn't lose his family in the fire...that Peter didn't kill Laura that night and then bite Scott. I wish they'd all been able to live out happy lives."

The last of the powder trickled through Stiles' fingers as he finished talking, and Stiles' vision blurred. Weakness washed over him like a wave, dragging him down into the oblivion of unconsciousness. Stiles fought for awareness, fighting the urge to lie back down and pass out, but he couldn't hold off the darkness, and the world tilted sideways, everything fading to black as Stiles keeled over onto his uninjured side, unconscious to all that was happening around him.