He felt Cora gripping his hand as he shot up from the table. The first person he looked at was Scott. "You didn't tell him?" Derek asked
"I didn't tell him what?"
"You didn't tell him that we just left town for a little while?"
"Derek, what happened?" Cora asked, squeezing his shoulder.
"He thought we were dead all this time", he told her. "He's been blaming himself, thought that he couldn't save us."
Stiles had this idea in his head that he made Derek worse so that he couldn't be saved, when Stiles was the reason that both he and Cora were still breathing.
"He knew that you were alive", Scott answered. "I told him you two left town, that we weren't sure if you were going to come back."
"Why did you say that?" Derek asked
"We weren't sure if you were going to", Isaac interrupted. "You left without saying goodbye to anyone but Scott. With everything that's happened, all that we've lost...it's understandable if you wanted to leave for good."
"A Hale has always stayed in Beacon Hills", Peter answered. "Neither of them would have trusted me to be the only one here."
"Can you blame us?" Cora asked
Peter shook his head. "That's not important. What's important is the fact that over time, Stiles interpreted their absence as death."
"The darkness could have transformed it in his mind", Deaton told him.
"Gerard was there", Derek said quietly, looking at Stiles' sleeping body. "He was terrified. Said that Gerard did something to him. What happened?"
Scott shrugged. "I don't know."
"Gerard was last summer", Derek replied. "You're his best friend. How can you not know?" Scott stared at his feet, a guilty look on his face. "Sheriff?" Derek asked, turning his head to the man next to Stiles.
"I didn't think that he had any secrets from me, let alone Scott", The Sheriff answered. "Looks like I'm wrong on both accounts."
"I have to go back in", Derek told Deaton. "I have to save him from whatever's going on in there."
"Maybe you should rest", Cora suggested. "It can't be good for you, entering someone's mind like this."
"I don't care", Derek insisted. "You didn't see him. He looked like he had been battling things in there for months."
The sticky electrode pads were already on his body. He leaned over to Stiles, grabbing his arm and took in his pain, closing his eyes and opening them again.
He heard Stiles shivering in the dark. "Stiles, it's me. I'm back."
"Go away."
"I'm not going anywhere without you", Derek told him.
"You brought him here. I don't know what else you brought with you."
Derek changed the color of his eyes, hoping that it would let him see in the dark. He was expecting to see the world in a bright blue color, but noticed that he saw in red.
"I'm an Alpha in your head", he commented.
"You're an Alpha", Stiles mumbled. "It's your go to line."
"I'm not an Alpha anymore", he told Stiles, sitting down next to him. "Lost it healing Cora."
"I'm sorry."
Derek let out a laugh. Stiles was trapped in his mind, scared and curled up in the dark, and he was sorry. "Save it for when we get you out of here."
They sat there silently for a couple of minutes before Derek started speaking again. "I don't hate you."
Stiles got up and started walking around. "You don't have to say that."
"What happened with Gerard?" Derek asked, getting up too. "If he's here, then you have to face whatever happened."
Stiles shook his head. "I can't."
"It might be the only way for you to get back."
Stiles spun around to face Derek. "Then maybe I don't want to go back."
Why? What happened here while he was gone that made darkness, guilt, and pain more favorable to living his life?
"You need to fight this. Trust me what I tell you that you can't keep running away from it."
"I don't want to", Stiles said simply. "And you'll disappear again. Maybe not now, but later, or you'll disappear once we get back. I don't want to face it. And you can't make me."