My vision blurred. Shapes swam around me, in swirls of grey and black and white and everything in between. The world felt like I was viewing it through discoloured, spoiled lenses, and there was this aching, pounding in my temple that refused to go away. Hell, I'd even venture to say I felt as if I was dying.
Someone was breathing loudly. It took me some time to register that it was me.
"Hey, hey! You're okay. Calm down, you're okay!" Hands fluttered to my sides, keeping me anchored. Somehow, my vision sharpened enough to see the worried eyes of a nurse (or doctor?) in scrubs. She managed a weak smile when she saw me.
"You're alive," She said, in the comforting bedside manner of someone who'd seen it all. "You're in Beacon Hills, right now. We found you in the Woods, at the edge of the Marten property." She hesitated for a few seconds before adding, "You saved my life."
I… what?
By then, someone else had shuffled into the room. The guy looked to be around a year or so my junior, with messy hair and really soft brown eyes. He wouldn't stop looking at me too.
The nurse turned around when the door opened. "Oh, this is my son, Scott. Scott McCall. He just… he just wanted to thank you for saving my life."
"Yeah… Yeah, I just…" He started speaking, but then the door opened again, and another guy came rushing in.
"Sorry to disturb, Melissa… It's just… Can I speak to her alone? Won't take too much time," The older guy added quickly, as if afraid the nurse would kick him out. "I just need to ask her a few questions."
The Sheriff jacket clued me in to what he was. But before that, he'd already started speaking. "Hi there. I'm Sheriff Stilinski. I just have a few routine –,"
For the longest time ever, déjà vu had been flitting through my head. The names, the faces… Hell, even the attitude. But this one took the cake. As far as I knew, there couldn't be a Stilinski in my near-vicinity. Such names were almost unheard of.
"I'm sorry," I blurted out, stopping him mid-way, "Where did you say I was? And what's the date?"
"Beacon Hills. Today is January 1st, 2011. So, as I was saying…."
It was too late. I had already blanked out.
{X}
How do you convince yourself that you've woken up in a fictional town, in a fictional place? Hell, in a show you stopped liking once it crossed the fourth season?
The worst part was that I couldn't fucking remember. I couldn't remember where I'd been, or what I was doing before that. I couldn't even remember how in the world I had saved Melissa McCall's life.
So when Sheriff Stilinski came back the next day. I told him a story of a girl with lost memories, a knack of being clumsy and of not knowing where her phone even was. He promised to circulate my photos and use his contacts to find me my parents.
When he asked me my age, I very pointedly said: "17".
I had turned 18 two months ago.
{X}
"I'd ask you to fill these out, but since you barely even remember anything…" Mrs. McCall trailed off, eyeing the papers in her hands with something akin to trepidation. There was something brewing in the back of her eyes that I could see from my spot on the bed. After some time, she kept them aside and turned to me, wringing her hands. "Look, so Scott and I were thinking… Since you have nowhere to go… We could, I mean, if you don't mind, you could stay with us till the Sheriff figures out a solution to your problem."
For a moment, I didn't know what to say. I knew there was no solution to my problem – it was impossible there'd be a solution to my problem. I'd read enough stories about girls who passed through worlds. Often, they were the Heathers, or the Cassandras who changed the Plot, and turned it to the better. They shaped the world like it was putty in their hands.
I… didn't even have a game plan beyond the usual 'Survive'.
So I traced the flowers on my bedsheet for a long, long time before looking up. "I'd like that, Mrs. McCall."
There was relief on her face, mixing in with the pity I saw so often for the girl that had been ripped away from her life. But she didn't say anything – just held out the forms for me to write my name and give a vague signature.
It took me some time to register there was another person in this equation.
"What about Scott?" I asked, once the realization had hit. "He won't mind, right?"
"He's the one who suggested it, actually," Mrs. McCall said, fluffing up my pillows and helping me upright. "Also, he said he'd visit you once he's done with… whatever the hell he's up to."
That was… surprisingly nice. I mean, in general, I knew that Scott was a nice person, but to see it in person was something else entirely. Silence reneged between the two of us until Melissa finally picked up the papers I had signed my name on and paused.
"Madison… Carter?" She looked up. "I didn't know you remembered your surname."
I shrugged loosely. "It took me some time but… It somehow fit, y'know?"
"Amnesia can be weird," The papers were stuffed into her handbag. "Anyway, we'll be discharging you in probably a day. This time tomorrow, you'll even be home."
"Thanks, Mrs. McCall," I muttered, before picking up the glass of water on my bedside and busying myself with it.
For some reason, I couldn't help but feel…. Content. Which was weird because….
Because it wasn't like I'd wanted to be here.
Right?
{X}
Scott visited me sometime after his mother had left. I say visited, but it was more like he'd stumbled into my room, closely followed by his bosom bud.
And yes, Stiles was really hot in real life too. I almost felt like begging him to change his style just a bit – Lydia would definitely have come running.
"Hey!" He called out once he'd entered the room, effectively catching my attention from the book I'd been reading. "Sorry I'm so late… We were just –," The two eyed each other in a way that suggested they'd done the same many, many times.
"Doing homework," Stiles finished for him with a large grin. "Nice to meet you, by the way. I'm Stiles. Stiles Stilinski."
"Madison Carter," I shot back, giving him a small smile of my own. For some reason, their appearance left me feeling slightly shy. "But you can call me Maddy, if you want."
"Yeah, I know. You're my dad's newest pet project, and no, ahh, that definitely doesn't mean what it sounded like. My dad's like, the Sheriff," Stiles trailed off hurriedly, as if afraid of making the wrong impression. I considered rolling my eyes, but it meant effort and I still hadn't healed, so that plan was shelved rather quickly.
Instead, I just mumbled a few words in the affirmative, waiting for someone to pick up the conversation again.
Which Scott did, after a few awkward seconds.
"Yeah, so, I don't know if Mom told you, but you'll be attending Beacon Hills High School with us."
"It's pretty great," Stiles added, "And you'll have us, so like…"
It was a pretty sensitive thing to say, for a boy at least, and it left me feeling weird again. I really needed to stop thinking of them as characters, especially now that they were real – blood and flesh real – in front of me.
"What about the paperwork?" I asked after they were done speaking, and Stiles rubbed the back of his head lazily.
"Dad's handling it. Seriously, don't worry about it."
"Alright…"
There was silence for a few more minutes until I remembered something important.
"Scott… How did I save your mother again?"
It wasn't a question he'd expected, because he looked slightly taken aback. Then he smiled, sort of. "There was this… disturbance on the road. I mean, Mum found out about it later, and she was going really fast. You just… showed up, so she hit the break. If you hadn't…"
"If you hadn't, she might not have realized, y'know? She might have gone straight into the water."
That was odd. So very odd. I wasn't even aware Beacon Hills had a water source.
"Where did you say I came from again?"
"The woods," Stiles said cheerfully, taking a seat on my bed. "You came through the woods."
{X}
"So this is it," Melissa announced, opening the door to my new room. "It isn't much, but we can go shopping later and you can buy whatever you'd like…"
"It's perfectly fine, Mrs. McCall, seriously…" I must've been frowning, because she picked up on it real fast.
"Don't worry about the money. The town has a fund."
Which, again, was precisely what I'd been worrying about, so finding out this alleviated some of my tension. It felt sort of like I was mooching off of her, but then again…
Ugh, this was complicated
"Any preferences for dinner? Scott's having the leftover pasta, but if you want –,"
"The pasta's fine. I just…" I turned around to give her a small smile. "Thanks a lot for doing this, Mrs. McCall. I know you didn't have to."
"Nonsense." Her smile was really warm. "I know how foster care works in this town, and I couldn't really have it on my –,"
"Mom!" Scott yelled from somewhere below, and after a few hasty apologies, she ran down the steps to see what he wanted.
Meanwhile, I ventured into the room, picking out the odd things on the shelves. When I saw the worn copy of Pride and Prejudice, I smiled before taking it down.
Some things, at the very least, never changed.
{X}
A/N: I can't even.