I said I wouldn't do it. I said I wouldn't write another one again. But I'm having the WORST writers block on something and I need to keep writing, so I thought I'd give this a go.

Currently it's slated as a one-shot – depending on reaction. The important things to note about this fic:

1. Takes place at the beginning of 5B

2. None of the resolution has happened

3. Takes place when Stiles' dad is in the hospital, Scott's still healing, Kira's in NM, and Theo is trash (which isn't anything new, but worth saying).

4. Derek is a presence because I miss him dearly.

This fic is going to be structured a bit weird because I love time jumps and I love breaking linear timeline. So tell me what you think!

Leave the Light on When You Leave

By ChasetheWindTouchtheSky

The weird thing about time is that we experience it linearly and remember it out of order.

Scott distinctly remembers the hospital – a place he once associated with health and safety. He recalls when he used to play in the hallways, usually with Stiles racing up and down and trying to convince him to do something bad. The lights didn't seem haunting and the walls weren't coated with a thick film of blood that he now associates with everything in Beacon Hills.

He remembers thinking that he is probably the luckiest person on the planet because his mother was so close to the hospital doors that if anything happened to the people he loved, they would live. They would make it out.

So the night that his chest stings with the ghost of Theo's claws and his shirt sticks to him from his own blood, he's shattered in a way that he can't express. Suddenly, that place of warmth and safety is gone. It's now filled with the Sheriff's dying body and a best friend that… well, can't really be called a best friend anymore. Scott replays the weeks leading up to this moment, wishing that there was something outside his own blindness that could've prevented this.

"He's not who he says he is."

"I need to figure what Theo's hiding."

"If you guys won't help me figure it out, I'll do it on my own!"

Stiles' words ring in his head like endless taunting, reminding him over and over that once again, not listening to him is causing the ultimate price to be paid. Except, of course this time, the person paying it was Stiles. Scott was perfectly fine being wrong when it was himself. Broken bones and cut skin meant nothing if it was him. But when it was someone else – someone who stepped in gasoline to light on fire with him – that was something that Scott simply couldn't settle within himself.

If Scott knew this was how it all would end, perhaps he wouldn't have bothered.

XXX

Flash forward to the funeral that never was supposed to happen. Well, the second.

Everyone stands next to a gravestone that will be in the Sheriff's mind whenever he closes his eyes. No one should ever have this happen.

No one should ever have to bury a child.

Right next to his wife, in the spot that he was supposed to take, is a clean, granite headstone. Freshly carved to fit in with the freshly spilt blood that he couldn't prevent from happening.

Czeslaw "Stiles" Stilinski

1999-2016

And Eternity in an Hour

John had to explain the memento to many people when carving it, but it made much more sense when placed next to his wife's, which read "To Hold Infinite in the Palm of Your Hand." He looks to his left where Scott and Melissa stand, Scott glaring at the grave as if it offended him in some way. It may have, John thinks absently. Because it offends him. It offends him to his core.

Scott is having trouble controlling his shift, so he's wearing sunglasses. When they left the McCall house, they flashed red and refused to be any other color. So his mother grabbed a pair of sunglasses and the trio headed out.

"Something's wrong with him."

"I'll do it willingly if you run a background check on the Raken's."

John swallows, wishing he could get the words from his son out of his mind. It doesn't work.

He takes the stand, and then the mic.

XXX

Five minutes before John woke up, Melissa made Stiles leave the hospital.

"Honey, I love you, but you're starting to smell." She says, shaking Stiles' shoulder. She wonders absently if she would have to physically lift him from the chair and drag him outside, but he merely lifts his head.

He's never looked so small.

Melissa's seen a lot of different versions of Stiles. She's seen ecstatic Stiles, conniving Stiles, in trouble Stiles, about to be in trouble Stiles, and possessed evil Stiles. But the one that always gets her – the one she rarely sees and makes the words catch in her throat – is vulnerable Stiles. Because when all his sarcastic barriers and shields against the world come down, his eyes seem impossibly big and his heart impossibly easy to break.

"He could wake up, though," he says and his voice is rusty. Melissa wonders absently if he's eaten or drank anything in the past two days he's been living in the hospital.

"Stiles, listen to me." Melissa crouches down so that she can stare in his impossibly wide eyes and pretends it doesn't make her want to fall apart. "You father is fine. He will wake up when his body is ready. Now, I've bent the rules for you, but I have a feeling they'll be less lenient when you start smelling anymore. Please, take a shower, eat something, and even take a quick nap."

"No." Stiles snaps, but his face softens when he thinks about it further. "I'll take a shower and grab some food though. Do you want me to bring you back anything?"

Melissa smiles, reaching into her purse. "I'd love some of those egg rolls, if you're heading on Tenth St. Get yourself something and bring me back a combo too." She holds out a twenty, but Stiles shakes his head.

"I can't take—"

"Now you shush, mister. I'm getting you food and going to help you out, whether you like it or not. You aren't alone in this. I have your back."

Stiles eyes fill with tears and desperation. "You'd be the only one, then."

If Time hadn't already been plotting against them, perhaps Melissa would've kept her money.

XXX

Three days after the funeral Derek shows up. Someone tells him Beacon Hills has taken a turn for the worst and he finds himself with a hole in his stomach that seems to be taken by a duo of teenage boys who've lodged themselves there. When he gets to the border of the city, he can already sense a change.

Everything by any stretch of the imagination, is the same.

But when Derek drives into the town, everything feels a little emptier.

When he sees Scott, his eyes are definitely emptier.

That's when Derek finds out what happened. Everything. The worst part being is that the city is still unsafe. Everyone's probably going to die.

It isn't until Derek's doing research that he realizes they've made an even more terrible mistake.

"Sheriff?" He calls at three in the morning, trying not to think about how quickly the man answered and how it was probably because he couldn't sleep. "I need you to keep an open mind when I tell you this. We need proof. I swear, we need proof."

Derek can barely understand the "Of what?!" as he stares at the computer screen.

XXX

They don't realize the body is gone until it is.

Melissa pulls the metal door open when the funeral director comes. He has no family, so he'll be buried in a government grave. She wishes she could feel worse for the kid, but a small, vindictive part of her thinks he got what he truly deserved.

But door swings open and there's nothing more than an empty metal sheet.

XXX

John hears about it after it happens.

That makes it worse.

His eyes open, heavy and drugged from whatever pain killers he's on. The world slowly comes into focus. It takes him a few minutes to orient himself and that's when everything comes back.

Theo.

Chimeras.

Stiles.

Stiles was right. There will be no living with him now. After his endless rants about how they were suspicious and how no one should trust Theo, he supposes he owes his son one hell of an apology.

After the nurses check him over, he notices that they nod to Melissa and leave the room.

"Am I dying?" He asks because they look so grave and Melissa's eyes are watering.

Melissa takes a seat next to him, grabbing his hand. He doesn't like this.

This is one of those moment that he knows everything is going to change. It's the same feeling he had when he held the dying teenage girl who pleaded for him to get the hospital. He knew his life was changing.

"John," she starts and the word is filled with weight.

"Melissa," he states, wanting to pull his hand out. "Melissa you're scaring me."

Melissa bites her lip while her chin trembles. "There was an incident."

John wants to laugh – obviously there's an accident because he's here, but he knows that wasn't it. "What incident?" He asks, unsure if he wants to know the answer.

"There was a fire."

John's breath catches and he vaguely remembers the day he sat teenage Derek and Laura Hale down and said those exact words. Unsure of how to say it and somehow cushion the blow. As if you could ever prepare someone for the knowledge that their family was gone.

"Y-Your house, there was a fire." Melissa chokes on the words as if they're poison and John decides they are. Because he has a feeling he knows where this is going, but everything seems loud and shrieking and he needs to hear it for it to be true.

"Where's Stiles?" He asks, his voice going up a few octaves. Because no. No.

Melissa shakes her head. "John, I'm s-so sorry."

"No," John rips his hand out of Melissa's, fumbling with the tubes and chords and all sorts of useless medical equipment preventing him from standing up and finding his son. "NO."

"John, stop—"

"I-It's not true, it can't be true."

There's beeping and his breath isn't coming as easily as it once did.

"John!"

The only thing he could think of as the sedative quickly kicked in is that the last person he hugged was Theo.

XXX

John finds out later Stiles was handcuffed to the radiator. His death is officially counted as a murder. People seem to think it would help, knowing he could catch whoever killed his son.

It doesn't.

XXX

The day they exhume Stiles' grave is a somber one.

Everyone from Scott's pack is there, but no one is standing next to each other. Derek tries to pick up on the pack ties, but they're strained and fractured. He wonders how they all are standing so close to each other with broken ties.

Derek looks at the grave and remembers why.

Some of the dirt from Stiles' grave gets on Claudia Stilinski's and Derek watches the Sheriff pale.

XXX

The last thing Stiles said to Scott was in the hospital.

"Where were you?"

Scott wonders that when he runs up, smelling the smoke from a mile away. He sprints the entire way to the Stilinski house because he just has a feeling. His chest is still healing and the inside is even worse as he feels pack bonds snapping, but he just knows. He just knows that the smoke he smells is coming from specific house.

By the time he gets there, the entire house is up in flames.

Taking a breath, Scott goes to sprint in – make sure Stiles is alright (he should be, he's at the hospital, he's always at the hospital) – but someone grabs his shoulder.

"Easy, kid! We've got this."

A firefighter he didn't even notice pulls him back and it takes every ounce of self control to not fight back.

The fire's out in minutes.

The air stings Scott's eyes, but he needs to know. He needs to confirm. Scott holds his phone in his hand, his mother's name before him, preparing to call. To make sure Stiles was in the hospital with his dad. Stiles would never leave his dad.

That's when he hears it.

One of the firefighters off in the distance come out of the house with his shoulders slumped. He takes off his helmet and sighs.

"The kid was in there."

Scott's phone cracks.

XXX

Lydia isn't coherent when Stiles dies, but she feels it.

The Eichen House orderlies come rushing in her room. "How is she crying?" They ask.

No one has the answer.

No one but Lydia.

Screaming can be internal. Sometimes that's the loudest.

XXX

Everyone's at the police station. Time is back to normal. It's no longer tilted and patched.

The Sheriff rubs his eyes. "I just want this over with," he says, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice toward Derek, but unsuccessfully.

Derek doesn't react.

They are messing on the computer, but John already knows the answer. The DNA will not change the fact that his son is dead. No matter what Derek saw, no matter what arguments he shouted.

Scott's at his left. His eyes are still red. John tries to remember the last time he saw Scott without red eyes. He can't.

Parrish is typing away on the computer when the DNA results come in. He presses 'Enter' and the whole station freezes.

"Oh my God," the Sheriff says, breaking the pencil that was in his mouth. "Oh my God."

Because it isn't Stiles who is staring back at them. It was never Stiles in the grave next to Claudia Stilinski. But it is someone they know. John will never forget those cold eyes.

It's Donavan.

XXX

They can't hear it, but Time laughs.

A/N: So, this is really the end - unless you think it'd be a better series. Let me know you're thoughts!