Stiles blinks when as he gradually wakes up. A nurse checks his bio-stats and smiles down at him.
"How are we today?"
"Terrible." Stiles responds.
"Well, better than yesterday, at least."
Stiles struggles to sit up. He looks around, disoriented. "Where am I?"
"You're safe," the nurse assures him. "You're on Gateway Station. You've been here a couple of days. Groggy for a while, but now you're ok. Hey, looks like you have a visitor."
A man dressed in an expensive suit walked in carrying, of all things, an orange cat. Stiles feels his heart leap into his throat and he grins broadly as the animal is set down in his lap.
"Jonesey! How are you, you stupid cat?" Stiles smiles at the feline. "Where have you been, dude?"
The man sits beside Stiles' bed and looks at them quietly. "I suppose you two have met, then? My name is Hale … Peter Hale. I work for the company but don't let that color your opinion of me. I'm a nice guy, actually."
Stiles says nothing. He simply holds the cat and looks at the man with his too-smug face.
"I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Stiles. They say the disorientation and dizziness will fade eventually … just the natural side-effects of such an unusually long hypersleep."
Stiles frowns. "What do you mean? How long was I out there?"
Peter looks distinctly uncomfortable. "Has no one – discussed this with you yet?"
Stiles swallows and shakes his head. He pets Jonesey a little too hard and the cat mewls in protest.
"No … I mean, I don't recognize this place," Stiles says looking out the large picture window that shows him a spectacular view of Earth.
Peter clears his throat nervously. "Well … this may come as a shock to you."
"How long?" Stiles asks. When Peter remains mute, Stiles frowns. "How long? Please."
"57 years."
Stiles blinks. "Uh … what?"
"I'm afraid the number is correct, Stiles. You drifted through the core systems … it's really just blind luck that a deep-salvage team found you when they did," Peter explains sympathetically. "One in a thousand, really."
Peter continues talking about odds and how fortunate Stiles is but the young man isn't really listening anymore. He feels a strange pressure in his chest. Swallowing hard, Stiles presses a hand to his sternum. Jonesey hisses in fear and leaps from the bed. Stiles grunts as the pressure increases, feeling like an extremely bad case of heartburn at first but then growing tighter and tighter like something is sitting on his lungs … on his heart.
"Oh god …" Stiles grunts in pain.
"Are you ok?" Peter asks, confused.
Stiles falls back against the bed and cries out, "Fuck … oh god! No!"
He can feel it. The thing that haunts his nightmares. The thing that took Finnstock before any of the rest of them knew what was happening. It's inside him … pushing at his ribcage … trying to get out. Stiles flails, knocking delicate medical equipment off its mount, sending a glass crashing to the floor, sweat pouring from his skin … his back arches off the bed as the pain grows to unimaginable levels. Peter is screaming for someone to help, pressing every button he can reach.
Stiles realizes how this will end … he knows he will die, but he can't let it be born. It has to die before it can escape … before it can do what it did on board the Beacon Hill. Before people start disappearing in screams and blood.
"Kill me! Kill meeeee!" Stiles screams as doctors and nurses flood the room, trying to hold him down, thinking he's just seizing or having a psychotic episode.
They don't know … they can't know … he's got one of them inside him … he's death incarnate and they have to end him … they have to make it die inside him … it can't be born …
And then it's too late - Stiles watches in horror as the skin on his chest expands with something pushing out. Something with a hammer-shaped head, pushing and straining from within him to escape and seek darkness to grow and hunt … Stiles throws his head back and screams …
The nightmare ends with Stiles sitting straight up in bed with a shout, his hand pressed to his chest. He looks down in the darkened room. He's got no blood on him. No sign of trauma to the skin there. He can't feel anything moving inside him. He looks down at the sleeping cat that yawns and blinks its eyes at him, admonishing him for disturbing what was once a nice nap. Stiles sighs.
"Yeah, I know, Jonesey. Guess no one's gonna invite me over for a sleepover any time soon, huh?"
The cat merely purrs while Stiles looks out the window and watches the Earth spin peacefully in space, free of things that go bump in the night.