Cora should have been dead, she knew that. She also knew how many people she had to thank for keeping her alive. That was one of the few things she did when everyone was certain she wouldn't be puking up mistletoe every five minutes. Cora had no idea how they did it, how they cured her – if she could even call it that. She was pretty sure it had something to do with Deaton and Derek, a combined effort. Every time she asked, she was shut down… apparently it wasn't important, the only thing important was Cora survived. It didn't matter how.
Out of all the missing information and misguided knowledge of what actually happened to her, one thing that she was for sure of was that if it wasn't for Stiles she would have been dead. At first when she realized it, it had made her cringe. How did she let herself become so weak that a stupid human - a stupidly weak and lanky human for that matter – had saved her, just by doing something as mundane as CPR? She had been knocked out for most of the mouth-to-mouth process, only being slightly aware once she was breathing again. She heard Stiles during his 'next time' 'being the one with the plan b' and not wanting to find his fathers dead body speech.
Luckily, Cora wasn't stupid. She didn't bring it up, mostly because everything had sort of worked out in the end. Stiles and Scott figured it out. They saved the sheriff and Melissa. Cora had no idea how, but that was mostly because everyone was hiding everything from her. She did thank Stiles however, and he had shrugged – threw an arm around her and winked 'any time.' Cora remembered how hard she rolled her eyes, but she also had to hide the small smile that was begging to show.
Apparently, those small little gestures were endearing to Cora. She liked being around Stiles after that. Things weren't as hectic as they were before. Nothing was forced and it felt like things could actually work out. Stiles was sort of… comforting. She liked the way his heart sped up when he was around her, and the way he was always finding an excuse to have some part of his body touching hers. There were other things too, the way he would listen to her talk about the current fight she and Derek had gotten into – amongst other things; they mostly revolved around how Cora wasn't a child anymore. Sometimes, the arguing would get so bad, she'd just leave the loft. When that happened, she always found herself in Stiles' bedroom. He'd offer her his bed, Cora would protest but Stiles would always end up on the floor either way.
It was little things that had gradually made the friendship so strong, and months later, once Cora was fully recovered and back to her daily regime of push-ups, chin-ups, sit-ups, etc. She realized that most of her time was spent with Stiles and it made her weirdly happy, to the point where she would actually giggle to herself – like a freaking teenage girl.
Cora liked him, she liked him a lot and it was frustrating because she felt like she couldn't tell him… so she didn't. She kept it to herself, which was why when Cora freaked out on Derek when he accidentally slipped up and confessed that 'Stiles might be missing' everyone in the room was surprised that she cared that much, even Cora was surprised.
"What do you mean he might be missing?" Cora asked, her eyes squinting into a glare. "He's either missing or he's not."
Derek put his hands out in a way to tell her to calm down but that, of course only angered Cora even more. "Yes, he's missing but we're handling it." Cora shoved his apparently comforting hands out of the way. Her heart beat quickened out of anger, and if she didn't control that she'd wolf out right then and there.
"How the hell are you handling it?" Cora asked, her voice dripping in udder shock. "You're all sitting here, doing absolutely nothing." She looked around, making eye contact with everyone in the room, making sure that her gaze on Scott lasted the longest, after all – Scott was supposedly Stiles' best friend. "Someone should be out there, looking for him, for fucks sake!" She said, a low growl escaping her throat. She waited for someone to move and when the silence settled and no one did anything, her hands went up in an exasperated sigh and she left them all sitting there with their dumbfounded expressions and made her way into the other room, already a plan forming into her mind.
"Cora, what the hell are you doing?" Derek asked, he grabbed her wrist to stop her, but she just roughly yanked it out of his grip and continued to throw on her combat boots and jean jacket. "What does it look like?" She spat. "I'm going to do what you're all incapable of doing, and find him. He could be out there dying, and no ones doing anything about it."
"Cora, calm down. He's probably fine. It's not like we aren't doing anything – we've had Danny track his phone. Why are you getting so worked up?" Cora stopped in her tracks and turned abruptly to give death glares at her brother. She wanted to explode, to explain to her older brother, to tell him that the only boy she's ever really, genuinely cared for is out there, possibly dying. That they were all stupid for thinking so little of it, like Stiles hadn't done anything stupid before? Just because things had been calm lately didn't mean everything was okay. Maybe it was the calm before the storm. She also wanted to punch her brother, it was all she wanted. And so she did, right square in the jaw, as hard as she could. He jerked backwards and gave Cora an incredulous look. "I don't have time for you." She said, quickly turning on her heels and exiting the loft as fast as a werewolf could. She heard Derek's shocked ridden voice explaining to the group of teenagers how his 'little sister had gone completely off the rails' She rolled her eyes and hopped into Derek's car.
Cora didn't even have her license, only her permit but she had gone to enough drivers ed classes and driving sessions to know how to properly drive. She was just bending the rules a little. Her first stop was Stiles' house. She knocked and wasn't all that surprised when no one answered. The Sheriff was most likely working – probably completely oblivious to the fact Stiles was missing, or thought he was too busy with the werewolf shit. Ever since the Sheriff had found out about werewolves, it was the excuse he used whenever his son did something out of the ordinary.
It worried Cora, probably more than it should, but she needed to find him – that was the only thing she was absolutely sure of. Instead, she climbed her way up to Stiles' window that led to his bedroom. Once her feet were properly landed on the floor, she didn't hesitate to go through his things to look for any clues.
Like she expected, there wasn't much to go off of. She noticed his cell phone sitting on his bedside table and rolled her eyes. There went Derek's plan to track his phone. Instead, Cora did it the old school way. She grabbed an old t-shirt off the floor and picked up his scent that may have been slightly etched into her mind already, before going back into her car and letting her nose lead the way.
It wasn't that hard to find Stiles' general location and that realization bothered her because what if Derek was right, what if she had worried for no reason? She pushed that thought to the back of her mind 'cause she knew she wouldn't be satisfied until Stiles was found.
She wasn't familiar with this part of Beacon Hills. It had a lot of alleyways and hidden dark corners. When something popped out from one of those corners, she squeaked a bit – jumping back. When she realized who it was, she rolled her eyes. "Scott, Isaac… what are you two doing here?" She asked, looking between the two teenage boys.
Scott looked at her, as though the answer was obvious, and Isaac just looked at Scott, expecting him to explain, which he did. "I kind of realized that you were right." Scott started, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Stiles… he's my best friend. He has been for a long time now. I should be the one looking for him, and the fact that I wasn't. Well, it was stupid and y'know, really shitty of me." Scott looked at Cora, a look that kind of just screamed, 'I know you know what I mean, you understand.' But he continued anyways. "Do you remember when you said that thing about finding the dead bodies; I can't let that happen to Stiles. Not Stiles."
Cora felt especially sympathetic for Scott. He was trying his best; he always was the one trying his best to get people out of situations. If anything, he was stronger than Cora… and she would have a hell of a lot easier time finding Stiles with him around. She remembered though that Isaac was there and she looked at him, waiting for his explanation. He just shrugged. "I go wherever Scott goes." The response made Cora's eyebrows rise in a questioning manner, while Scott just goofily smiled like an idiot and nudged Isaac with his elbow.
Cora didn't dwell on it, she was too preoccupied with trying to find Stiles to question what that was about. Once she started walking again though, Scott and Isaac quickly followed; only slightly trailing behind her. It really didn't take long to maneuver their way through the alley that kind of reminded Cora of a maze except a lot scarier.
When the scent trail stopped, Cora looked around. There was nothing, just a few dumpsters. If she went by smell then she would've been able to scope Stiles out, but apparently that wasn't the case. It didn't make sense to her and her mind went into overdrive - trying to think of some other way she could find him because she needed to. She needed to find him, and the fact she couldn't really frustrated her.
It was weird… how fast it happened. One minute, she was running her fingers through her hair due to frustration and the next, Scott was calling out to her, his tone making chills run down her spine. She had never ran over to someone so fast, and when she got over to Scott, who was kneeling down, she realized that it was worse than she thought it would've been.
Stiles was hunched over behind a dumpster, she barely recognized him. Blood was everywhere and his face was cut up brutally. After feeling around for a pulse, and finding one – an extremely faint one… Suddenly, everything was different. She started shouting directions at both Scott and Isaac, telling them to pick him up and carry him to his car. She needed to get him to a hospital, and the main focus at the moment was getting him to her car as fast as possible. Scott and Isaac struggled only a little, but they managed to get back to the car in record time, and Cora didn't even wait for Isaac to fully get himself into the car before she started speeding away.
After driving through a few stop signs and red lights, they made it to Beacon Hills Hospital and Cora was being forcefully pulled back by Scott and Isaac as Melissa Mccall pushed Stiles into a different room for surgery. Cora tried; she tried really freaking hard to escape Scott and Isaac's hold on her. She felt like she couldn't let Stiles go, couldn't take her eyes off him 'because if she did, he'd just end up getting hurt again. There was also another part of her that needed to know what the hell happened so she could find the person who did it and rip their head off.
Eventually, Isaac and Scott let Cora go, but she didn't go chasing after Stiles, he was probably already in surgery anyways. Apparently, there had been a few broken ribs, a broken leg and concussion. So Cora sat in the waiting room all night, eventually falling asleep.
When she woke up, Derek was sitting next to her on one side and Lydia on the other. She rubbed her eyes and stood up, noticing that the whole crew was there: Peter, Allison, the Sheriff, Scott, Isaac and yet she didn't want to be anywhere near them, well at least the majority of them, after how much they underestimated the situation. Cora's eyes searched her perimeter and she saw Melissa, standing behind the front desk. She slowly made her way over to her and put her fingers up against the desk, tapping them anxiously. "Stiles is in 4b, right?" Melissa looked hesitant, which was probably due to the fact only family was allowed into the room during visiting hours, but she nodded anyways and Cora made her way.
The doctors had said Stiles would be done with surgery in the morning, that he was perfectly fine and responsive. Once the blood was washed off, it really wasn't all that bad – nothing they couldn't fix. When Cora walked into the room, she wasn't surprised to find Stiles sleeping peacefully – an empty chair right beside him. It was all pretty dejavu-ish, and Cora thought about the last time she had been in the hospital, the roles completely opposite.
Cora sat in the chair, just watching Stiles for a few minutes. There was a part of her that wanted to shake him awake, to see his big brown eyes and make sure he was actually okay like everyone had been telling her. She didn't though, of course she didn't. He looked too peaceful for that, and instead she took his warm, calloused hand in her cold, small ones and squeezed only slightly. She hunched over and rested her head next to his – it wasn't a very comfortable position, but she fell asleep nonetheless.
When she woke, the first thing she realized was that she wasn't in the chair anymore, instead she was in Stiles' bed and his arm was flung across her waist. She flipped over and sat up, too quickly, even for her. Stiles stirred next to her and mumbled a 'good morning.'
She was a little bit overwhelmed by Stiles' voice and the fact he was actually there, wide eyed and breathing steadily, which was probably why Cora threw her arms around him as quickly as she did. She didn't hold on for very long, just a second, long enough for Stiles to moan a quiet 'ow' and Cora to feel guilty about getting too excited. "I'm glad you're okay" She told him, awkwardly putting her hands back in her lap. "How'd I get up here anyways?" She asked him, looking around. He couldn't have done it himself, not in that state.
"I just got Scott to move you." He told her, shrugging like it was no big deal. "You looked uncomfortable. I thought I should return the favor."
"You didn't have to do that." She said, looking up at him sheepishly. "I was fine."
"But I did." He smiled and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "I guess we're even now."
Cora shrugged, "Not really. It's not like I gave you mouth-to-mouth or anything." Stiles chuckled, and Cora couldn't help but smile a little. She liked the sound of his laugh. He didn't do it as often as he used to, so it was refreshing to hear it, especially at a time like this. Her smile slowly faded though as she remembered what she had originally came here for. "Right, anyways. Stiles. What happened?" She asked, looking into his brown eyes, and listening closely to his heart beat – making sure he told her the truth.
"Honestly, I don't remember anything. I'll blame that on the fact I'm concussed. I told Derek and Scott the same thing. So, sorry you can't get your vendetta or whatever. Not like you really want revenge anyways, it's just me. It'd make more sense if you were getting revenge for whatever stupid shit made you go out and waste your time looking for me." Stiles said, exhaling loudly. His heartbeat was steady, and Cora just looked at him, eyebrows raised.
"Don't be stupid." She replied, rolling her eyes.
"I'm not stupid. It's true, you don't care that much." He said. Cora glared at him, wondering why he was so oblivious. Obviously she cared; she wouldn't have done any of that if she didn't care. In fact, she probably cared too much. Stiles started talking again, saying something about how if it wasn't for her, he'd be dead in a dirty alleyway, 'I would have died a virgin, that would have been the worst thing about my life' but Cora tuned him out, thinking to before any of this happened and her biggest concern being how she was going to tell Stiles that she had feelings for him. Now it just seemed stupid, but watching him, hearing how steady his heartbeat was, the way he licked his lips and how he was so perfectly content even when he had a concussion and a few broken limbs – it made Cora realize that if she didn't tell him now, then she never would.
Stiles was in the middle of explaining some theory to her about who might've attacked him, but Cora cut him off with a chaste kiss. Cora noticed everything, how he leaned back in surprise, how his heartbeat skyrocketed, and how it took him only a few seconds to reciprocate the kiss.
His right hand went up to brush her cheek and the other made it's way into her hair. Cora was cautious of where she touched Stiles, only letting her fingers lightly run up and down the length of his arm. She smiled through the kiss when she felt Stiles shiver, and then she pulled back. She watched him lick his lips, and it made her bite down on hers instinctively.
"What was that for?" He asked, a look of pure shock etched across his face.
Cora looked at him, she carefully brought her fingers up to his face and gingerly moved the tips of them across the bruises and cuts. It was delicate and sweet and made Cora really happy. "Next time." She whispered, "I wanted that next time to be now."