"I know baby, I know. I'll make it home for breakfast." Dr Lorraine Weaving sat on a spinning chair at the nurses station of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital just outside Beacon Hills, on her first break in the eight hours she'd already worked of her shift. "Hey, do you really think I'd rather be eating my evening meal from a vending machine?"
"Well Julia's cooking instead of Michael so yeah probably," her youngest daughter Adelaide deadpanned across the telephone line. That thought suddenly made Lorraine grateful for the twizzler she was currently chewing on. "Why can no one in this house cook?"
"Our talents lie elsewhere." Lorraine shrugged as yet another crash of thunder boomed through the corridors and a flash of lightening followed, only visible through the windows in the rooms of the surrounding patients. "Hopefully." There was another crash, but this time it wasn't the weather. A disheveled Nurse McCall came bounding through the double doors with a troubled look on her face. A now alert Dr Weaving, who was on call for the evening, instantly knew something bad was about to hit them, hit them hard.
"Incoming trauma. One minute out. It's bad, really bad." Nurse McCall's solemn voice had Lorraine's mind racing as she went into doctor mode. They were a small hospital, not equipped to deal with mass trauma. They only had one room built to deal with something like this, normally these types of emergency were routed to the bigger hospitals in the surrounding cities.
"Right. Prep the trauma room and make sure there are some empty beds in the ER, that's all we can do," she ordered. Turning her attention back to the ten year old on the phone, Lorraine Weaving quickly said her goodbyes. "Okay, I gotta go kid. Love you, stay safe in this storm."
"Love you too, go kick ass." Adelaide said before hanging up swiftly. Lorraine made a mental note to scold her daughter's bad language when she got home, but for now she had work to do.
When the ambulances arrived it was worse than Dr Lorraine Weaving had expected. A house fire, a house full of people, children, all tragicly either dead or severely hurt.
The place was in chaos, in her charge were three victims. The three were luckily still alive. A man with the worst third degree burns she had ever seen, not even in medical textbooks had she ever seen a case so severe. A woman and who she assumed was her child, who seemed to have avoided the worst of the fire. They were covered in black soot but seemed otherwise unharmed. Making what she deemed an easy judgment call, Lorraine took the man into the trauma room with nurse McCall, yelling behind her for a nurse to check over the other two. She slammed the door closed and worked what she could only describe as a miracle to save the life of one very fortunate man.
Four hours she was in there. The screaming and strangled yells would forever be etched into her mind. It was quite possibly the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. She was drained. Physically and emotionally. All she wanted to do was slide down the wall and sleep, right there in the ER. But she had patients. Wiping the drops of sweat from her forehead and removing her scrub-cap, Lorraine went looking for the woman and child who had come in, hoping one of the nurses had set them up nicely after the once over she'd requested.
"Hey, where are the other patients? From the fire?" Lorraine asked in confusion to a nearby nurse. The beds were being stripped and the floors mopped. What was going on?
"Dr Weaving, he's the only one. The man you were working on, he's the only survivor." That hit her like a truck. Surely that couldn't be true. That little girl? Her mom? They had been fine, they just needed a basic check-up. She must of asked all of this out loud because the nurse gave a grim look as she replied. "It was smoke inhalation, soot on the inside of their lungs."
"And didn't anyone look down their throats?" Lorraine's voice was getting louder now, the upset and anger in her voice garnering a few looks from those nearby. "That is an easy catch!"
"It was chaos in here!" The nurse defended, "They seemed fine! We're not equipped to deal with that big of a trauma you know that!"
Lorraine wasn't even listening anymore. She backed up to the wall behind her and slid down, one hand in her dark blonde hair and another over her mouth. The nurse was right. They weren't able to deal with this. She alone had made the call to prioritize the man over his family.
The man.
How was he going to deal with all of this?
How does one deal with being the sole survivor of a mass casualty? With the loss of his entire family?
What Lorraine Weaving did not know, was that whatever she thought, Peter Hale was going to cope ten times worse than her darkest dreams would allow.
- A Moment of Impact -
"How can that possibly have been her mom's fault?" Stiles yelled from where he stood, arms flailing everywhere. "She saved your freakin' life!"
"She ruined my life!" Peter roared, so much so that everyone was silenced and a heavy weight fell in the air. "She took them from me! They could have been saved!"
Addie stood numbly, not really taking much in at this point. Unblinking as her hair fluttered around her. Despite the tale Peter had just told of her mother failing to save the lives of his wife and daughter, Addie's mind was still stuck on one single fact.
"You. You killed my mom." Addie stated. To be quite honest she'd been expecting a sense of relief at finally, finally, knowing the truth. Instead, she felt nothing.
"Kate was the one who started that fire." Derek said resolutely. "Adelaide's mother had nothing to do with that Peter."
"No. No, no, no!" Peter insisted maniacally, it was scary to see how much he believed what he was saying. He seemed to have created his own narrative which he believed implicitly. What Addie didn't know, was that Peter Hale had had a lot of time over the past few years to convince himself of his own truth. "She may not have started that fire, but she was part of the problem!" Peter took steps towards Addie and she couldn't help but stumble back a half step, grabbing the tree trunk to her left for support. From the corner of her eye she watched as Scott, Derek and Chris took a protective step in her direction. Stiles was being blocked by Scott while Allison stood looking on in shock, her eyes couldn't help but flicker back to where Kate lay still, but breathing. "You're mother came to visit me, did you know that? In the five years I spent in that god forsaken place, unable to move even my head, she came to see me every month. She told me how sorry she was, how much she wished she'd been able to save them. That she could of saved them but they just made a mistake. A mistake!"
"I know my mom- she would never have-" Addie began to defend her family but Peter never gave her the chance.
"You know her? Did you even notice when she left to visit me? She was part of it. Part of the problem, so I solved it. I ended her." Peter snarled. "When I got some of the movement back in my hands, and then my face, and then my legs, I hid it. Because I knew I needed the element of surprise if I was to get the justice that I deserved. That they deserved."
"You killed my mom, that isn't justice. It's murder." Addie told him strongly and harshly.
Peter continued on as if he'd never heard her, "She made me suffer, so I done the same. In January she came to see me as normal, and she had no idea I'd gotten it all back. When she got back into her car I followed her and I stood in the middle, right in front of her car, and I watched. I watched as her eyes widened with shock-"
"Stop." Addie pleaded.
"I watched as she recognized me. I watched as she turned the wheel to avoid hitting me. As she slid on some black ice and as she crashed straight into the trees at the side of the road. I watched it all with a grin on my face."
"You- you're a monster." Addie whispered, silent tears pouring from her eyes. She still didn't have an idea of anything that was going on, or why they were all gathered in that clearing, but right now it was far from her mind. Instead she stood there dumbly as her mothers killer described her death in excruciating detail.
What made it worse was the sly, maniacal grin that stretched across Peters lips, showing his teeth in what was almost a snarl. "Oh honey, you have no idea." He really did find pleasure in this. Behind Peter, Kate groaned and her leg moved as she slowly started to come back around. Peter glanced back at her then back towards Addie. "Well I have some business to take care of, and quite frankly I'm bored of you now Miss Weaving. Night Night."
"NO!" Addie heard Stiles yell from across the clearing. Her wide eyes latched onto his just as Peter reached out with one lazy hand and grabbed the side of her head. Mirroring exactly what he had done to Kate merely minutes earlier, he unceremoniously smashed her head against the tree she had been hiding behind earlier with a loud echoing crack.
It was only on her way down that Addie put two and two together. The alarms that had had her phone singing, just then to get her caught and also the night before. Of course. She'd been too preoccupied to remember, but now that it was too late she remembered clear as day.
Her insulin. She hadn't taken any at all in the last forty-eight hours. That added to the fact that her eating had been all over the place those last few days she knew then that her blood-sugar levels must be haywire.
However, remembering now was of no use.
Because as she fell to the forest floor, everything went black.
- A Moment of Impact -
Stiles Stillinski had learned many things being the son of a cop. One skill he had picked up over the years, was how to get into places he wasn't allowed.
That's how he managed to sneak past nurses, doctors, candy-stripers and members of Adelaide's family and into the private room where she lay unconscious. Looking small among the blankets draped over her and hooked up to machines that beeped along with her heartbeat she lay, breathing steadily. But she wasn't awake. And it was his fault.
It was thirty-six hours since the debacle in the clearing, outside the Hale house. So much had happened in those hours but Stiles didn't care. He didn't care that Kate was dead, that Peter was dead. That everything was finally going back to some sort of new normal. He didn't care because Addie wasn't there.
For all those hours Addie had lay in the hospital, in a hypoglycemic coma. So much had been going on since the dance that Addie's health had slipped to the back of her mind, and Stiles couldn't help but blame himself. Thanks to him she'd nearly died. Thanks to him his girlfriend was in a coma.
Stiles almost snorted as the words crossed his mind. Girlfriend in a Coma. One of Addie's favorite songs, track number four on the CD she had loaned him only a few months ago. It felt like a lifetime ago. Stiles gave a laugh at the irony, it felt wrong to laugh, the echo weighing heavy in the dull hospital room around him. Could he really call Addie his girlfriend? Only a few nights ago she'd insisted that he did, but a lot had changed since then.
"The irony." A voice croaked at his side, and Stiles jumped a mile where he sat. Blinking twice he stared at the now semi-conscious Addie, who was slowly coming round. "Thank god my favorite song wasn't Die Young. Although it is up there."
"You're awake." Stiles stated blankly.
"Black Sabbath, obviously. Not Kesha." Addie continued blabbering as she tried to sit up, Stiles moved to fix the pillows behind her.
"You're awake." Stiles smiled widely, the red rings around his eyes looking foreign now as he sniffed and wiped at his nose. Addie could tell with one look that he'd been crying, but she decided not to mention it. "Hi."
"Hi." Addie stated plainly.
"You- you were gone for a bit. I didn't know what was- I didn't know what to do- Ads I-" Stiles was stumped for words, in his mind he'd been going over and over what he would say when she woke up, but now nothing seemed to make sense. "You were in a coma Ads."
"That hasn't happened in a while." Addie looked around the room. "Diabetic side-effect."
"You need to take better care of yourself Addie, you can't keep putting others before yourself. Especially when it comes to your health." Stiles said seriously, debating whether or not to reach out for her hand. Would she be okay with that?
"Yeah well, I was kind of distracted." Addie used the hand he had been about to take, and reached up to the left side of her head, where a nasty wound had been bandaged up by her doctor. "So."
"I take it you remember everything that happened." Stiles sighed, he really had wanted at least another few minutes before they dived into this.
"I do." Addie nodded, flinching internally as she thought back to Peter Hale going into disturbing, excruciatingly detailed accounts of her mothers death.
"I'm going to need you to lie for me Ads." Stiles replied eventually, looking up at her with guilt-ridden eyes, knowing that he was asking too much of her. "When the police come in, my dad, you can't tell him any of what you saw or heard."
"But Peter, my mom-" Addie started, but then recognition crossed her face and she closed her mouth, swallowed and nodded. "Right."
"Right?" Stiles asked cautiously.
"What? What do you want me to say?" Addie shook her head in disbelief, looking away from him. "God Stiles, I can't believe you, you know that? Lydia almost died. I almost died. And still, you keep lying, you hide the truth and you don't tell me what the hell is going on all to protect your little secret. And now you want me to lie for you too? Despite the fact I don't have a clue what I'm lying about? Despite the fact you know how I feel about lying?"
"Addie-" Stiles pleaded, but she silenced him with a sharp glare.
"I'm out. I'm done with whatever this game is you and Scott and Derek and apparently the Argent's are all playing." Addie stood her ground firmly, unflinching as she said her next sentence. "I want you to leave."
"Addie-" Stiles was again on the brink of tears, frustration taking over his whole body. God, he wanted to scream, or kick something or pull his hair out or just do anything. What made it worse was that he completely understood where she was coming from. He would be the exact same if the shoe was on the other foot. But it wasn't his secret to tell, and if Stiles Stilinski was anything, he was loyal to his friends. And he couldn't betray Scott like this, not only that he had to keep her safe.
Stiles didn't get a chance to protest anymore before the door opened and in came a somber looking Julia Weaving, accompanied by Addie's doctor. "Stiles." Julia stopped in her tracks, confusion across her face as she saw the tall boy before her, "What are you doing in here?" Julia asked, however she forgot all about Stiles as her eyes drifted over to a now awake Addie. "Addie!" Julia rushed over to her sister, obviously not feeling the tension that weighed heavily in the air. "God Addie, you scared us." Leaning forward she planted a kiss atop Addie's head amongst the mess of thick blonde hair, giving Addie a quick two seconds to discreetly wipe the two tear drops that had slipped out.
"I want him gone." Addie stated, unwavering in her determination.
"What? Stiles? But why-" Julia looked even more confused at the hostile tone in her sisters voice.
"I don't want him here. Please tell him to leave." Addie didn't look either of them in the eye.
Utterly bewildered, Julia's eyes darted between the pair. With no clue what was going on, and with no idea what to say, she looked sympathetically at the crestfallen Stiles. "I'm sorry Stiles, but I think you should-"
"It's okay." Stiles nodded, furrowing his brow as he tried to toughen up. "I'll go." Stiles gave another sniff as he righted himself and made for the door. As he reached the threshold he turned back to see the two sisters, Julia watching him go in confusion, and Addie determinedly looking anywhere else, but unable to his the tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm really glad you're okay. Bye Ads."
And with that he reluctantly walked away.
- A Moment of Impact -
Only one more chapter to go and that's us done! Story complete!
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