A week after his mother dies of aggressive pancreatic cancer, Stiles comes home from his psychiatry appointment to find his father nearly passed out at the kitchen table, mumbling nonsensical incoherencies at the grainy wood beneath his flushed face.

Stiles is ten years old and has a bright and shiny new prescription for anti-anxiety pills to try and end the debilitating panic attacks that occur almost nightly.

Sheriff Stilinski is thirty-two and has just lost the love of his life. They'd been high school sweethearts, had Stiles young, and hadn't been apart a single day until her passing. He'd lost the woman who had been a part of him for eighteen years, leaving him with Stiles, medical bills, and a shattered heart.

He's been binge-drinking all week. Bottles of whiskey come and go, vodka is drained by the glassful, and scotch levels continue to saunter vaguely downward. Half the time, Sheriff Stilinski doesn't even recognize his own son. He's been calling Stiles Alice off and on, really only using his name when he has a rarely sober break for reality to burst through his hazy consciousness.

Stiles walks to the hospital. Stiles suffers through panic attacks alone and in the secluded darkness of his own room. Stiles makes an appointment with the psychiatrist and tells her that his father wrote the forged note giving them permission to see his son as an unaccompanied minor.

Stiles allows his father the chance to grieve for the woman he had loved as the center of his world, Stiles himself being a tiny planet orbiting his mother's awesome existence. Not a cast-off, but a byproduct of the cosmic collision and subsequent gravitational event that their love had created. An extension of the best and worst parts of the only two celestial giants (Scott not included) that mattered in Stiles' world.

But now, seeing his father wrapped pathetically around a half-empty bottle of Jameson - newly purchased if the receipt sitting half underneath the bottle and half underneath his father's arm is anything to go by - Stiles gets angry. He's tired of coming home every day to take care of his father when they should be taking care of each other. He's tired of his father acting like he's the one who died rather than his wife.

Stiles does what he does every time he finds his father in such a stupor. Stiles takes the bottle, puts it away, and begins to cook dinner.

It's only been a week since Meredith passed and Stiles still isn't even close to over it. But someone has to move on and if his father won't, Stiles will. He'll still have panic attacks and he'll still inhale deeply into the sweater of hers he keeps hidden in the secret drawer of his desk. (The only item of hers that's been removed from his parents' room.) At least Stiles will be trying though, and at least his father can have whatever time he needs to heal.

Stiles only knew his mother for ten years. Not all of those years are clearly remembered but from what he does remember, his mother was... Perfect.

John had known Meredith almost double the length of time Stiles had, so Stiles can only imagine the pain of remembering each and every one of those years and then realizing that he'd have to spend the next however many decades without her.

John wakes up to find a puddle of drool under his nose that smells suspiciously like Irish whiskey and a blanket on his shoulders that he knows wasn't there before. The bottle of whatever liquid poison he had been drinking before is gone, leading him to believe that he'd finished the bottle. It wouldn't be the first time he'd finished an entire bottle of fine and very strong liquor by himself in one sitting. At least, it wouldn't be the first time this week.

When he stands up, his neck is stiff and his back is sore. There's a plate of something chicken with vegetables mixed in sitting about a foot away from him, covered with plastic-wrap. There's a note on it that simply says 'eat'. Head pounding and stomach rolling, he eats and completely forgets about the missing bottle of booze.

Oh well.

There are plenty more where that came from.

Scott needs to be with his best friend almost constantly. It isn't because he needs Stiles but rather because Stiles needs him and Scott knows it.

Stiles would never admit anything like that but Scott's had a parent leave. He knows the kind of person-shaped hole it leaves with someone. Granted, Stiles' mother died and will never come back. Scott still holds out hope that his dad might - despite the finality of divorce.

When Scott arrives at Casa Stilinski to see the Sheriff passed out at the table, Scott knows it's going to be a rough one with Stiles.

Unsurprisingly, he's wrong. His best friend is sitting at his desk, trying to do some of the work he's missed over the past week of school. None of the administrative people had wanted him to return for at least two weeks, wanting him to grieve properly before attempting to resume his life. Stiles had agreed only if he was allowed to do the work at home, to which they agreed uneasily.

Scott sighs and heads to the closet to get Stiles his hoodie - Scott's planned for them to go running this evening. He may be ten but he's not stupid and he knows Stiles doesn't like to sit around and do nothing. Even when Scott found him crying on the playground three years ago, Stiles was moving around. (Lydia Martin had punched him in the face for saying she was pretty because he was a boy and he had cooties.)

He finds at least thirty bottles of liquor all neatly arranged in his best friend's closet.

Each one ranges from half-full to nearly empty and Scott can only stare blankly at the depressing reminder of things past that happens to remain - at present - in Stiles Stilinski's closet.

"Um... Dude...?" Scott asks, gesturing vaguely towards the closet full of contraband while looking at Stiles with both confusion and concern written across his face with such neatness that Hemingway would have been jealous.

Stiles simply shrugs and returns to writing out all of the reasons he will miss his mother. He knows Scott thinks he's doing schoolwork - Scott never really liked to read between the lines - but schoolwork isn't his top priority at the moment. Listing out his fondest memories (listening to her sing along with Paul McCartney as he soulfully poured his heart out in 'Yesterday' or watching her brush her hair at the breakfast table while she watched his father read the newspaper) is the first step to acceptance and the only one Stiles can handle right now.

Scott understands the bottles and - after carefully remembering how he'd stumbled upon John Stilinski - his friend's motivation for doing so. Scott's father wasn't like Sheriff Stilinski. He didn't pass out and wake up forgetful and happy. He got violent, rude, and downright mean. Scott will always believe that the real impetus for divorce had come the night Scott stumbled into Melissa's skirt, crying because his father threw a bottle of tequila at his head.

Without a word further, Scott sets about emptying the bottles.

With every drop that goes down the drain, Scott feels his heart get lighter.

With every bottle that comes back empty, Stiles feels himself relax a little further.

With every bottle that John sees in the trash, he feels himself move on just a little bit faster.