(AN: This has been in my head for ages and I finally decided to write it and I'm actually really proud of this one. Please let me know what you think I really appreciate the feedback I get from you guys. Thanks."

Scott knew what day was coming up. He knew the date by now of course but the event he dreaded most every year didn't last just one day. It lasted a week and just like every year he didn't have to look at a calendar to know when it was coming up.

The main sign was Stiles' flailing would quieten slowly as would his constant talking. And then Stiles wouldn't come to school for the week leaving Scott to make up excuses about his best friend being sick or on vacation because he knew that the Sheriff wasn't at the station for the week either.

So he took extra notes and gathered Stiles' homework and assignments from his classes and made the excuses because he knew what happened during that week, every year.

The anniversary of Claudia Stilinski's death lasted a week for their small family because while she had fought a lengthy battle for her own mind, her death took one week. Once she had lost the ability to speak they knew it wouldn't be long.

Stiles, still being so young, talked to her to fill the silence they usually filled with laughter. But as she began to lose the ability to swallow and her fragile grip on reality lost its last thread he only ended up begging her to stay.

And when he lost her, that small boy so young and all alone when her hand slipped from his and his begging turned into screams to harmonize with the machines, he could only blame himself for not loving her enough to make her stay.

So when the date loomed and the nightmares began again, the now grown boy stayed home to keep the stench of his grief and his guilt from rotting the trees in the street. And his father stayed home to remember the one that he would have given his whole world for and to protect the boy that now was his whole world.

The Sheriff having lost his wife, though it was so long ago, would be tempted to swallow his grief through a bottle, not knowing how to comfort his boy other than sharing the week with him at home and silently shifting over when Stiles climbed into his bed at night.

The Sheriff came to expect the dip in his mattress as Stiles climbed in after a nightmare, still shaking with tears wetting his father's sleep shirt as he clung to the one parent he had left. Sometimes he would offer a "You okay there son?" as his boy hid his face in his father's neck and shivered at the memories still plaguing his dreams but mostly it was silence as Stiles faced hell in his sleep and the Sheriff simply didn't sleep at all.

Usually at the four day mark Melissa would be called and she would bring Scott to stay with the two that were so much like family to them. Melissa and the Sheriff would stay in the guest bedroom as the man simply could not stand the sight of his bed but needed to sleep do desperately. Scott would stay with Stiles and take whatever pain he could, and simply hold his friend when he couldn't.

When the whispers came, the quiet shaking words that sunk Scott's heart each time he heard them, the alpha whispered back reassurances and attempted to smother the guilt that burned through his best friend.

"Mamma's gone she left me. I couldn't make her stay and now she's gone. I'm so sorry Mamma."

And each time, Scott would tell Stiles how he remembered his mother. He remembered the same twinkle in her eyes that she gave to Stiles and the same quick tongue. And of course she knew he loved her. How could she not when he looked at her like she was born from starlight and she held him like he was her reason for shining? That she knew he loved her but she was born from the stars and it was there she had to return. Because she had given her best gift to the world, and that gift was her smart, charming, kind, brave little boy who she loved with all the light she had within her.

And the whispers would quiet and the smell of guilt would fade away with the darkness.

Then as the week came to a close and the nightmares lessened, Stiles slept without fear and cleared his head of the thoughts he would save for next year. So Scott would go back to school and be ready to welcome Stiles back on Monday, back to his normal self, as if nothing had happened. Because it was nothing, it was normal. It happened every year.