Beacon Hills, 2001
He was at home waiting for her when he got the call. It was a normal Tuesday night, perhaps a bit more fog in the air than usual, but he thought nothing of it. She usually got home from the office at 6:00. The clock read 6:13 the last time he looked, and he figured she was running late.
She wasn't.
At around 5:55 pm on Dolore Road, Beverly Caram lost control of her car and crashed into a tree. The driver of the car behind her witnessed this accident and called an ambulance. She was taken to the ER in critical condition and put through three surgeries, one to remove a glass shard from her chest, one to correct the flow of blood to her heart, and another to fix the part of her skull that had been fractured by hitting the airbag.
The hospital wasn't very busy that Tuesday night, as if it knew that one world crashing down was enough. He waited in an uncomfortable chair for hours without any information on her condition before the doctor came to tell him that she would live and that he could see her if he would like.
When he walked into her room, all of the air he hadn't been able to breathe came rushing into him. She laid on the bed, unconscious and broken, but still breathing, still able to heal. To him, she had never been so beautiful. He sat beside her bed and slipped his hand into hers, resting his head on her stomach, and let the steady beat of the heart monitor sing him to sleep.
He woke up to a bright morning light shining through the hospital's cheap shades. He felt Beverly's hand squeeze his own and he started immediately. Her eyes were still closed but the heart monitor sped up.
"Beverly," he whispered hoarsely. Slowly, she opened her eyes, her expression confused and scared.
"What…" she managed before cutting herself off and staring at him strangely.
"It's okay, honey," he assured her. "You've been in an accident but you're going to be alright." He smiled brightly, hoping that she couldn't see his worry. But her expression didn't change. If anything she seemed more confused than ever. She looked down at their intertwined hands and then back at him. Her gaze travelled his entire body before resting on his eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked, and suddenly he couldn't breathe again.
"My name is Michael." He searched her eyes for any sort of recognition, but there was nothing to find. "I'm your husband."
Underground Tunnels, 2016
"You can't have him," Scott growls. Malia follows in suit, stepping up next to Scott and baring her teeth with a low grunt. The Sheriff joins them, standing in front of Stiles, holding up his gun. Lydia winds her arms around him, daring them to try pulling them apart. They make a fiercely brilliant team, a force for anyone to reckon with. But the man just laughs.
"You can't defeat me, so I would advise you to give this up this defiance now, before you get yourselves unnecessarily killed," he says. Malia growls. "I only need the Halteseil. It would be a shame to waste the lives of so many just for one."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Malia spews. "What's a Halte-whatever?" The masked man begins to pace.
"Halteseil," he pronounces distinctly. "German for tether. It's the word the Horsemen use. Some mythologists call it the Lösung, the key. French mythologists often called it the attache. Either way, it's the thing I've been searching for for fifteen years."
"What does Stiles have to do with it?" Scott asks. The man opens his mouth, but he is not the one to provide the answer.
"He is it," Lydia announces, her voice full of dread. "Stiles is the key."
