'Mom would have believed me.' Why had he said that? In the six years since she had died, Stiles had been so careful never to pit her memory against his dad. So much that he barely ever spoke about her with him, so.

'Mom would have believed me.' Mom was also dead. Like Dad. Or how Dad would be shortly if they didn't find him before their psychotic English teacher slashed his throat and—

Someone was screaming. Someone was screaming and for once it wasn't Lydia. Someone else was hurting for once and it wasn't—

"Stiles. Stiles!" Scott's voice brought him rocketing back to that classroom. The classroom where his Dad wasn't anymore. He didn't remember falling to his knees, and he didn't remember starting to scream so why was he the one—oh.

He closed his mouth. Lydia was knelt next to him and this was so not how he'd imagined that, but right now it didn't matter because—

"They took my dad."

"Not they. She." Scott spat out from somewhere above him. His voice was clouded, he was still a wolf, and Stiles could see the blood dripping from his mouth to the ground. He sat back on his heels.

"Yeah. Plot twist, that." He muttered bitterly. It was a reflex, a battle shield, this sarcasm. He'd learned it from his mother. He glanced up at the broken window again.

"I really did think it was Harris this time." Scott's voice was faint. Lydia blinked and turned to the two of them, a hand still protectively grasping her throat. Stiles still didn't look away from the window.

"She knew." She whispered. Stiles knew she didn't need to. There was no one else in the room to hear them, his father was gone. He met her eyes for the first time and felt his emotions spike closer to a boiling point when he saw the fear housed there.

"She knew my something." Stiles couldn't bring himself to put a questions mark there but,

"Your something." Lydia gave him a pointed look.

"Oh. Oh."

"I'm the wailing woman. A Banshee." Her hands were clasped in her lap, and Stiles saw she didn't need to whisper, she had to. The garrote had left a red ring cut into her neck, not enough to kill her the way it would on his father, but deep enough.

"A whatshee?" Scott had calmed down enough to phase back. Stiles closed his eyes and sighed.

"A Banshee. They're celtic spirits that scream to signify that a death is coming." This was familiar, the rattling off of supernatural things, but tonight it was different. Tonight nothing was familiar, "They sometimes can be tied to a certain family—"

"I know." Lydia's voice was smaller than he'd ever heard it. Smaller than third grade, smaller than she had any right to be.

Stiles swallowed hard and closed his eyes again, tightly. He could feel himself snapping. Every second was a montage of not being able to shove the door open, of watching her pull him through the window. Of the last things they'd said.

"Look. I don't—we can't waste time explaining once thing to add to the pot of supernatural potion we've got cooking here." The words were ground out through his mouth, but Stiles hadn't chosen them. His father was gone, there were no more choices.

"Lydia, I'm sorry, but we really don't have time for an identity crisis right now. Congratulations, you've got superpowers. You're an omen of death, okay? You can predict death, and I really don't—I can't be around that right now."

The words kept coming, and now he was yelling. He was yelling and he never yelled. He was standing, pacing the classroom. The classroom where there were three. Three not four.

"You and Scott, you go, okay. You go, and you fix everything with your powers and your strength and all the things that I can't do." Someone had kicked a desk over, maybe it was him.

"I never wanted to be like you, and I don't ever want to. I've seen this shit for too long, but right now—"at some point he had begun to cry, "right now she's got my Dad. My dad, Scott. Me being human isn't going to cut it right now, the way it never will. So I need you. I need you to go, and find him, because I cannot lose another parent right now, and I absolutely cannot have the two of you to blame for it."

And suddenly the words were gone, there was nothing else Stiles could possibly say that could make this go away. Could make all the hurt and fear and anger that he had felt these past two years more tangible. He had felt it crackling inside of him for so long, and now it was almost crackling in the air, in the open. Somewhere, someone was heaving huge, wracking, sobs, and somewhere he knew it was him. Stiles couldn't meet Scott's eyes, and he dared not even glance in Lydia's direction.

His shoulders sagged, and he scrubbed both hands over his face. This was watershed, this was big. But there weren't any more words. Stiles' father was gone, and the choices had dwindled to a single path that he couldn't fit on.

"Just. Call me when you find the—or I guess I'll just hear you scream."

When he walked away, not even Lydia's calls could bring him back. His father was gone. There were no choices, there was no hope.