When the smoke clears, the Alpha pack are dead. Erica moves, scrambling undignified through the clearing.
"Help." she tells Scott's phone. It is the first one she sees, lying annoyingly small and banal and out of place on the forest floor. Then the human in her kicks in, and she dials three numbers.
It's Boyd she looks for first, of course. (She's not sure when she added the "of course"; but there it is.) They've suffered together, the two of them against the world, then come back to the pack that was theirs all along. Boyd is calm and grave and kind beside her, and when they get into the worst situations and Erica can feel the phantom twitches of a condition no longer harbored in her skin - he's the one she looks to.
Allison and Scott are together, of course. (if any couple merits an "of course", it's that one.) Allison is propped up against a tree trunk, her bow still caught tightly in her hands and her head of black hair lolling over it, a sort of resolve still solid and certain in her unconscious features. Scott looks oddly innocent considering he's just ripped open an alpha to protect her, but he's unconscious too, from exhaustion or his wounds Erica can't tell; and for a moment she is reminded of the young Scott she'd see around Beacon Hills, being dragged in and out (always out) of trouble by his best friend, and that is when she leaves them to look for Stiles.
She finds him with Derek; they are crumpled, back to back, Derek just conscious and trying to get up, Stiles dead or deep under. Derek rasps something at her, something hoarse with a metallic smell about the pack, and she understands and she nods slightly although she isn't sure. Her alpha is too far gone to detect the lie. He falls back against the boy in the bloody hoody, his eyes closing as she stands hoarse and strangely frozen looking down at him, and the last word she hears her alpha say is Stiles.
A thought flutters, quiet and sweet in the back of her mind; the unfamiliarity of it makes her hackles rise and her face smile but the smile feels odd and out of place there at such a time, and besides, it's not a thought for here, the scent of blood thick and clogging up her senses.
She winces, and kneels down at Stiles' side. He looks peaceful, like Scott, his face pale and calm. There is blood caked in his newly grown out hair and when she touches it it is moist and soft.
The sweet thought turns fierce and seems to scratch at her and freeze.
She tells the sheriff everything. Deaton is there, the man in question and Chris Argent - her three numbers. It only takes half an hour to explain the essentials when it's all laid out, so she tells him and he listens before asking a few careful questions and disappearing outside. There is crashing and smashing and yelling and all she can smell is his anger and his son's blood. Then he calms down and goes to see Stiles.
Stiles is in critical condition and there is a head trauma and there is a possibility of mortality, the nurses tell her when she asks. Melissa has finally left the cubicle, although it took the Sherrif stirring from Stiles' bedside to send her away. Her superiors weren't too pleased about her constant occupation there but Erica is almost regretting it. She wonders how the nurses replacing her can be so cool about it and very carefully refrains from punching the most impervious of them in the face. Derek is there when she visits and she can see from the look in his eye that he hasn't forgiven her for the lie she told him. She doesn't really feel anything about that - not like he could have done much, ripped with alpha inflicted wounds and full of panic - but then, she doesn't really feel a lot about anything these days.
Stiles' dad comes back in with coffee - he looks hard and raw - and stops still in his tracks at the sight of them. "Get out." he tells them calmly, not quite amicably but there's no hostility there either: and they do, Derek twisting to look back at the bed as they go with an expression remarkably similar to regret on his beaten face. The thought itches and twitches in her peripheral vision. "Coffee." she tells him, because if she doesn't have some soon she's going to go mad and, actually, she thinks she probably will anyway. Derek looks at her like he genuinely doesn't understand words anymore - a terrible, blank look - and worse, like he doesn't know why.
Possibility of mortality, says the voice in her head, and she hastens to the bland relief of the hospital vendor.
Stiles sleeps for two months.
Erica thinks he would joke about that if he was awake. All the sleep I've lost over you people, he'd say quietly like he didn't think anyone was listening. Well, you'll have to get someone else to do your research for a while.
When he wakes, she's going to apologize. We probably shouldn't have been taking advantage of your rigid work ethos,Derekwill say, and Stiles will snort.
She's still going to apologize though.
Anyway, it starts with smiling. Suddenly this grin curls across his face and he looks like he might laugh, but instead it just fades out again into blank sleep. The first time it happens, the sheriff is getting coffee or clean clothes or something and Scott and Derek are sitting in a silence that has been there long enough not to be awkward. They make such a racket when they see it that the shock team are already half in there and set up before they realize that it's just a good sign. Stimulation of the brain, that cow of a nurse filling in for Melissa tells Erica. It means he's getting closer to waking up.
She very carefully refrains from kissing said cow. She kisses Stiles' forehead instead. Wake up, batman, she whispers joyfully.We need you here.
Scott is practically passed out from relief, head in his shaking hands and slumped against the arm of his chair. Derek makes an odd, cracking sound in the back of his throat and looks disturbingly close to either crying or breaking into song.
He wakes up on the 21st of December, three days before Christmas Eve.
He manages barely two days of physio before setting Scott and Isaac and their "squinty eyes" on Deaton. Deaton caves embarassingly quickly and does something difficult and resembling witchcraft, ad Stiles is almost back to his old self by the 24th. He doesn't talk about what he dreamed about for all those months; he looks fragile sometimes, like he can't remember where he is. She knows Scott and the others are worried about him but apparently that doesn't help people like Stiles, so she treats him as she always did - less poetic violence, perhaps, the occasional support in an impassioned argument about The Avengers. Stiles appreciates it, she thinks. She knows he's bought her and Boyd matching Gryffindor blazers for Christmas.
All the same, he seems to look to Derek now when he gets lost inside his brain.
Erica, Scott and Derek turn up at the Stilinski residence before ten o clock on Christmas Eve. The sheriff opens the door and stands there staring at them on the matted step, and speaks absolutely tonelessly before any of them can think what to say. "You want Stiles over for Christmas."
They nod together, three of the Hale pack. He looks a little lost before saying, "Oh, for god's - just, I want him back for Christmas dinner."
The sheriff looks tense and smells tense and invites them in for coffee then looks massively relieved when they decline. Then Stiles comes down and claps Scott on the shoulder and makes an awkward, half-aborted lunge towards Derek before they pile into the Jeep and the Camaro, and drive back to the Hale house.
Peter is standing in the kitchen glaring at the cooker when they get back. Lydia won't look at him and Jackson seems torn between punching him and making sure that Lydia doesn't, which is awkward. Peter is either unaware of this or supremely not bothered and tells Stiles to make the cooker 'do things', and Stiles half-heartedly does. There is a lot of glaring in the kitchen for a while but then Stiles has managed to burn about a sackful of potatoes and Derek's eyebrows do a thing and suddenly he's saying, give it here, and he's holding the spatula. Everybody gets out in a hurry in case of explosions but in the end it is sort of edible, while Erica can see Derek come to the conclusion that Stiles is never going to let him live this down.
It's later that she finally lets the thought out. Scott, Isaac, Jackson, Lydia, Allison, herself and Boyd are all staying but Stiles wants to spend Christmas day with his dad. She sits at the window, her breath misting it slightly, watches Stiles leaning against the side of the Jeep with Derek as they speak.
There's no kiss. No passionate embrace. In seven months the two of them will be captured by a pair of rogue hunters and that will come then, in a grey and dingy room full of morning light, just when they think they are about to die. (In actual fact, Scott and Chris Argent will get there just in time and there will be lots of embarrassing explanations to be given and hands to be smacked over ears and many, many eyes to be rolled.)
But for the moment, everything is peaceful and quiet, the slushing rain coming a little early to wash away the first, thick, flush of snow. They stand there together and Erica hears Stiles' voice full of its reedy, strong life again and Derek wishing him a merry Christmas as the Jeep clatters off a little too quickly down the ice-ridden roads.
So perhaps this isn't the time to tell the pack what she saw in her alpha's eyes all those long, painful days ago. She looks down from the window sill and Boyd meets her eyes above the red emblazoned sweater: he gives her a fond, almost knowingsmile. Scott and Allison and Lydia are bickering about chocolate and mistletoe or something (Erica can tell only from the tone of voice that Lydia is winning. Scott looks impressed and afraid. Allison refuses to give up without a fight.) Jackson looks like there might actually be a human under his thick, much changed skin. Peter is nowhere to be seen - perhaps a family Christmas was a little too much for him this year.
No, she won't tell them. It's not her secret to tell.
She looks back at Derek, standing in the snow. The Jeep can still be faintly heard as it rattles on its way.
No, she decides. It can wait.
A/N: First published on AO3. Original A/N is as follows:
Yes, I'm evil for leaving them there. I just honestly think that if Sterek were to happen it would start during something dangerous and stressful and not peacetime, and I was trying to keep my first TW fic as in character as possible. I sort of failed quite a lot, but enjoyed doing so and hope this is not an abomination.
Absolutely ignorant on subject of both comas and hospital procedure. Please excuse any and all mistakes, and thanks very much for reading!