A/N: this is it. I may or may not continue this in the future but for now, I have no plans on doing so. If anyone wants to adopt this fic, please pm me :)
It starts with the Nogitsune and ends in Allison's death. Scott looks like death warmed over, the rest of the Pack not much better and Stiles can only sit there, at her funeral and feel numb. Not even guilt seems to have penetrated through the fog that he seems to live in these days.
The nightmares come after that. The first night he's free and they come, taking over until he couldn't sleep, afraid to even close his eyes. Until he collapses out of sheer exhaustion and falls into unconsciousness.
The rest of the Pack, Scott and Lydia especially, are having it bad, or so Stiles tells himself when they don't call, text or make any remote gestures to talk to him. It's fine, he assured himself. He'd been alone most of his life after all (he hates it).
Then after the fog has lifted and he can feel again, the guilt comes, swinging into his stomach with all the force of a sledgehammer. It stays there, hard lead at the bottom of his stomach and only grows heavier each day as he glimpses Scotts pale gaunt face and Lydia's dark circles that she tries to conceal. The guilt almost crushes him.
And so like everything else he wants to avoid, he throws himself into the Internet and his computer, homework if he has some, anything to draw his mind away from the recent events that have happened. It wasn't a healthy way to cope, but it helped him. On the plus side, he did finally work himself to the point of total exhaustion, where he could just collapse and fall into so deep a sleep that dreams don't bother him.
And so things fall into a routine, Stiles absorbing everything he can research, the Pack avoids him, his dad works goes to work at the crack of dawn and comes home so late at night they practically don't see each other. Maybe it's for the better; Stiles doesn't need his father's disappointed gaze to make him feel any worse about himself.
Nothing really changes for the first two months, until Stiles stumbles upon some information about time-traveling, and then the ideas start pouring in. He'd never fancied himself the idealist kinda guy, but Stiles couldn't help but imagine the future he could have if he went and changed things. It would be better, everything was better than now and maybe the guilt would finally go away. He could finally rest in peace.
Stiles took a deep breath.
And so it began.