Chloe burst inside the hospital and ran immediately to the nurses' station.

"I need Melissa McCall" she said sternly to the nurse currently sitting at the front desk. The nurse rolled her eyes and then pages Melissa as Chloe waited impatiently. The second she saw the unsuspecting Mrs. McCall walking down the hall way Chloe jumped into action and almost ran down the hallway towards her

"Melissa!" she called out causing Scott's mom to look up and see the young girl rushing towards her.

"Chloe?" Melissa asked slightly confused. Chloe stopped right in front of her slightly out of breath

"Where is Stiles?!" she asked manically. The situation suddenly clicked in Melissa's head and she smiled

"Let me take you to him, last I checked he was still asleep but I'll let you in anyway" Chloe let out a breath of relief and smiled at the older woman. Melissa then put a comforting arm around her shoulders and walked Chloe to Stiles' room. "I haven't seen you since the kidnapping, Scott talks about you and tells me you're ok but I'm glad to finally see the proof with my own eyes." Melissa said taking her arm from around her shoulders. Chloe looked up at her from beneath her lashes

"I'm glad you're ok too" she said quietly. Chloe didn't really like talking about the Darach and the kidnappings, but Melissa felt safe. She nodded and gave the girl a warm hug before letting her look inside the 'patient room'.

"So what is going on with him? All Scott said is that he wasn't sleeping well… like during the whole Nemeton thing?" She asked Melissa finally laying eyes on her boyfriend and relaxing at seeing he was safe.

"He came in complaining of some symptoms, poor sleeping habits, black outs, headaches… going over a lot of those symptoms the most likely diagnosis was that he was just a stressed and tired boy who needed a healthy dose of R.E.M. sleep so I gave him a sedative." Melissa told her trying to keep a soft smile on her features. Chloe caught on to her diversion however and asked

"What do you mean 'most likely diagnosis'? What were the other options?" she asked concerned but putting on a brave face. Melissa gave her a sad smile knowing this girl was a fighter from their time together in that pit as well as how protective she is over Stiles, a boy she felt was like her own son.

"There are multiple possibilities Chloe, but from what Stiles has told me it might be something slightly more severe and genetic… but it's too early to tell and I need to do some more research on it before I tell you more and make you worry over nothing. I think that all he needs is some sleep and to wake up to a kind face…" Melissa told her trying not to make the girl panic. She had been through a lot and seen so much over the past month that she didn't want to push the girl over the edge. Scott had told her over the years about Stiles' crush on her and how they had been friends since they were born. Melissa didn't want to make her worry that she might lose her oldest and best friend over something that was still inconclusive.

Chloe knew that the 'something' that Melissa wasn't telling her was for her own good but she was sick of everyone trying to protect her from the truth. She always finds out eventually… But she also understood that she probably couldn't take any more bad-news right now. She nodded to the nurse and gave a small smile before looking back through the window at her boyfriend and letting out a breath.

Chloe entered slowly, the lights were off but the light coming in from the window still illuminated the room enough to see Stiles' sleeping form on the hospital bed. Scott was right, he did look like crap. He may have looked rather sickly but he was still adorable and her Stiles. Chloe slowly stepped closer to the bed holding onto the strap of her bag tensely before setting it down on the ground next to the chair and moving the visitor's chair closer to the bed so she was right next to it and could hold his hand. She held it and played with his fingers gently

"So this is what you must've felt like while I was in the hospital huh?... Yeah it sucks. I feel so anxious worrying about you. Why do you always make me worry about you? You are going to be the death of me one day Stilinski" she chuckled to herself sadly. "I will admit I do feel stupid talking to myself right now… I don't know what they gave you but you seem to be knocked out cold so…" Chloe looked down at her bag and remembered her research. "Oh I um… brought you something. I did some research on better sleeping techniques and found a bunch of stuff. I of course narrowed it down to easy ones and stuff I think you would actually do" she chuckled again at her own joke while talking at him. She pulled it out and started reading off the different stuff she had found.

Unbeknownst to her, the Sheriff and her father were outside the room watching her through the glass with sad smiles on their faces.

"Those kids are crazy about each other…" Michael commented breaking the silence while still looking at his daughter talking to the sleeping boy.

"Or their just crazy…" said the Sheriff who immediately regretted his choice of words after realizing the impact of what he was implying. He had recorded his son's symptoms and they were leading towards an outcome that was too heart breaking to think about. But his old friend Michael appreciated to joke nonetheless.

"You know Stiles asked me permission to marry her the other day…" Michael told him and the Sheriff raised his eyebrows at his son then glanced over at his friend to gage his reaction. Chuckling he replied

"What did you say to that?" honestly curious.

"I told him to ask me again after graduation…"

"Which graduation? High school or College?" John asked now worried about his son getting married way too early. Michael smiled to himself and looked over at his longtime friend

"You know he asked me that exact question and I told him that whenever he thinks he'll get a yes from both she and I". The two men laughed and shook their heads at their troublesome kids before walking back to the waiting room.

"How long do you think she'll be in there?" Michael asked the Sheriff.

"Well, Stiles sat for entire weekend for one his friends, and an entire day after searching for her for an entire week, so who knows how long she'll stay" the Sheriff told him honestly. Michael sighed thinking about all the work he still had to do at home…

Chloe lightly glazed over each of the different techniques she had researched while occasionally glancing up at his sleeping face.

"I won't go into the specifics right now but I think they will help you… and if none of those work then I can always just hump your brains out till you pass out from exhaustion" she joked and looked up at his pale resting face. He looked so stressed out and tired, even while he was sleeping… a few tears started to fall again and her voice became shaky.

"Why didn't you tell me? I would've helped you figure this out like I am right now… Why couldn't you tell me that you still weren't sleeping? What else is going on Stiles? How bad is it really?" tears fell off her face and landed on is hand that she was holding. Chloe put her head down and dried her tears on the rough hospital sheets and blanket. She picked her head up and looked up at him and his passive face

"I love you so much" she whispered up at the sleeping boy. She sat there just watching him sleep for who knows how long, Chloe lost track of time holding on to his hand and monitoring his shallow breaths. It felt like minutes but it was actually hours when she next looked at the clock. Chloe sat up and stretched out the kinks in her neck and back before pulling out her phone to check it for messages.

There was one from her dad saying he went home but to call him to come pick her up when she was ready. She smiled at that and sent him a 'thank you'. Weirdly enough there weren't any other messages on her phone.

Chloe looked outside and noticed that the sun had gone down. Her heart rate rose as realization hit her that she hadn't gotten any texts because her friends were fighting for their lives while she was just sitting there like a sad-sack. Chloe looked around at the dark room and immediately felt like they were being watched. She quickly stumbled over to the lamp next to the bed on the wall, it was dim enough to not wake Stiles but bright enough to eliminate most of the shadows in the room and be rid of some of her paranoia. Chloe didn't want to leave Stiles unprotected while he slept, she didn't know who the shadow ninjas were going after so there was no clear hit list of who was safe or not. She decided to hunker down and stay next to him until he woke up or otherwise…

After about a half an hour she finally got a phone call from Allison explaining how the guy she, her father, and Isaac had gone after didn't know how to stop or kill the 'Oni', a.k.a. the shadow ninjas, but knew what they were after. The 'Dark Kitsune' which was a fox spirit that inhabited a person. There were a lot of different kinds of Kitsune but the Dark one was the worst and most dangerous, which is why the Oni were hunting it and marking each of their victims with that backwards number five symbol. That symbol roughly meant "Still ones' self", so they would search the souls of whomever they were after and then mark them as still themselves until they found their dark spirit. It was a lot of information to take in but Chloe understood the gist of it then asked about Scott.

"You mean you aren't with him?" Allison asked now sounding worried.

"No. What help would I be anyway?... Allison the sun is down; do you think he's ok?" Chloe asks extremely worried herself.

"I don't know, but where are you right now then?" she asked, concerned for her friend's safety as well.

"I'm in the hospital with Stiles… are we in danger?" Chloe asked her friend as a sense of fear washed over hear as she scanned the shadowed corners of the room.

"I don't know, the old man said that the Oni only go after the people who have any sort of connection with the supernatural… that explains why it went after all the ware-wolves and Lydia but I don't know about us humans? We have ties to them but we ourselves are normal" Allison informed her. Chloe let out a shaky calming breath

"Ok… I'll wait here with Stiles. Call me if you hear anything from Scott and the others" Chloe told her before ending the call. She stood up from her seat and walked over to the door and locked it, she knew it wouldn't really protect her from the shadow ninjas, Oni, but it made her feel safer. She also looked around for something to protect herself and Stiles with and only found basic doctors' office supplies and discarded needles which would be useless against an unstoppable shadow ninja. Chloe kept sweeping the room with her eyes anxiously. She wanted to feel safe and keep him safe.

In order to calm herself down she decided to gingerly climb on to the bed next to her boyfriend and lay down next to him. She gently lifted his arm so it went around her shoulders comfortingly and she gently rested her head on his chest listening to his steady heartbeat that played the soft rhythm that eventually lulled her into her own light sleep.

A few hours later Chloe suddenly felt cold and tried reaching over to Stiles but felt nothing next to her but an empty bed. She slowly opened her eyes to look and find the blankets pushed back and Stiles gone. Suddenly alert Chloe sat up straight in bed and looked around the room for any trace of Stiles. He was gone, he had left her again. Chloe held back her anger as she remembered there were scary 'Oni' out there hunting all of them down. Chloe hopped off the bed and grabbed her back pack off the floor.

"Stiles? Melissa?" she called out into the hallway where there was no answer. She looked around and found literally nobody around which she found eerily odd considering this was a hospital that had nurses constantly running around and stuff. Chloe didn't want to venture too far away from the room just in case Stiles came back, he's probably just looking for the bathroom since he slept basically all day she tried reassuring herself. Then she heard footsteps coming down the hallway and she turned to see none other than Stiles and Scott walking towards the room. Chloe smiled at them extremely happy they were both ok.

"I'm happy to see they didn't kill you Scott, Kira ok?" she asked as they walked closer. Scott nodded and Stiles walked up and smirked at her

"I left you asleep… how long have you been here?" he asked. Chloe blushed and looked down at her shoes

"Since school got out" and she heard Stiles chuckle and then wrap an arm around her and kiss the top of her head. "Hey guys I just gotta grab my stuff then I'm heading home, Chloe do you need a ride?" he asked her smiling down at her. Chloe smiled warmly up at him

"I'll take a ride from you anytime" she winked and heard Scott cough next to them.

"Well I'm gonna go then" he said sending Stiles a look before awkwardly waving goodbye and leaving. Chloe giggled and opened the door for Stiles as he walked in and grabbed his sweatshirt, phone, and keys before turning back around to face her.

"Thank you for coming" he said then planting a sweet kiss on her lips. Chloe smiled into it until he pulled away.

"Always" she said softly, she was beat and wanted to go home and go to bed. She grabbed Stiles' hand and walked out of the hospital. Stiles seemed different… like more rested or something. He seemed calmer which was good. Maybe sleep was just what he really needed? They climbed into his jeep where Chloe sent a quick text to her dad saying Stiles was now awake and was driving them home. Stiles hopped into the cab and started the car when Chloe asked

"So why didn't you tell me your sleeping was still bad? I thought that everything was all good?" Stiles sighed and looked over at her.

"Because I honestly thought I was 'all good' at first, my sleeping was fine for a while until it wasn't. I just kept blaming it on stress until it got so bad that I followed Scott's advice and took a sick-day to come here. Mellissa said there is nothing to worry about, and that I was just sleep deprived so she gave me a sedative to fall asleep for a few hours" he told her looking into her eyes. Chloe nodded in understanding but also remembering Melissa's other prediction of a diagnosis that had worried her slightly.

"What else is going wrong then? What else haven't you told me about? Because it takes a lot more than being tired to get you to go to a doctor, I know how you hate needles Stiles" she pushed knowing there was something else. "What are your other symptoms that you're too scared to tell me?" she asked more softly. Stiles looked pitifully over at her

"The vivid dreams, black outs, anxiety, sleep walking…" Chloe leaned back in her seat staring at him… she didn't like the sound of any of those things. Stiles saw the panic in her eyes and immediately tried to justify himself. "I used to sleep walk when I was a kid, and I've always been an anxious kid that's why I take Adderall; you know that. The black outs are from not sleeping and the vivid dreams were because of the Nemeton sacrifice stuff so really… I'm fine" Stiles told her while also trying to down play it. Chloe sat there facing forward listening to his symptoms and didn't say anything the rest of the ride back to their neighborhood.

She couldn't believe it was that bad still and she hadn't realized it. Sure, she had noticed the dark circles under his eyes and how clingy he was… Sure she was definitely aware when his door was open and before the whole kidnapping thing; but how could he have not told her this stuff was continuing to happen. Was he still having night-terrors as well?

Chloe was hurt that she couldn't tell that her boyfriend was going through all this stuff; and that he would lie to her about it. She nodded knowing he was just trying to protect her, like everyone else, from worrying too much; they had had this argument before. But he was just going to have to get used to her worrying and helping anyway. Eventually, Stiles pulled into his driveway and turned off the jeep and glanced over at her. Chloe looked over at him and offered a weak smile not masking her fears very well.

"Hey… I'm gonna be fine, ok?" Stiles tried telling her and reaching over towards her. Chloe pushed his hands away and looked at him sadly shocked.

"Fine? Stiles… we never closed your door, how are you going to be fine? With all this weird stuff happening with the key and your handwriting and Barrow…" Stiles interrupted her reasoning

"We closed my door Chloe, I know we did. These are all just side effects of not sleeping-"

"-Not sleeping which had gotten apparently worse since we closed your mind-door. What if what Deaton said is true? What if something bad came in before we could close it?" Stiles rolled his eyes at her and smiled before cutting off her way of thinking.

"Chloe, I think I would know, and tell you, if something else was going on in my head" he chuckled at her pulling her over into his arms. "Everything looks messy and confusing now but it will eventually become clear and we'll fix it like we always do… average Tuesday for us remember?" he said kissing the top of her head. Chloe took a calming breath and sighed then nodded realizing Stiles had a point that she was only seeing 'worst case scenario'.

She was still going to worry about him regardless as she looked up and gave a slightly more convincing smile and he planted a sweet kiss on her lips. He pulled away then looked at her

"Don't worry about me, and stop thinking about something going on in my head alright? I love you, go back to your house before your dad has another melt down." He told her and Chloe sighed again and smiled rolling her eyes. She then hopped out of the jeep and walked around to his side towards her house.

"Please call me if you can't sleep ok?" she told him giving him a hug and he embraced her. "Here… I brought you these sleeping techniques, I know there stupid but they got good ratings and I'm willing to try anything to keep you with me" she told him pulling out her packets of sleeping techniques she had read to him while he slept in the hospital. Stiles took the information from her smiling

"I'll make sure to use my dream catcher too" he joked. Chloe lightly slapped his chest and smiled at him teasing her before standing up on her tip toes and kissing him. After a moment or two she pulled away and looked at him

"You made me a promise that you would never leave me Stiles, don't you dare break it" she warned as the worry and fear twisted her stomach into knots. Stiles nodded

"I won't leave you behind again…" he joked and she almost smiled "I love you". He said leaning down and kissing her again more passionately. Chloe wasn't quite prepared for the deepened kiss but went with it and wrapped her arms around his neck after getting over the initial shock. Stiles' hands slid down from her waist to her ass and then held tight causing Chloe to smile into the kiss. Their tongues danced together as Stiles pulled her in closer to him not letting her leave. When they broke apart for air Stiles continued planting kisses on her check and down her jaw and neck. Chloe smiled and through her panting said

"Stiles I have to go" trying not to giggle. Stiles pulled her closer and whispered

"No" as if he was pouting. Then spun them around so he had her pinned against his jeep and he continued kissing her neck. Chloe couldn't help but let out a giggle as she tried again

"Stiles! Seriously I have to go my dad is…" Stiles pressed himself against her and Chloe could feel his erection pressing into her leg and it kind of turned her on. She reclaimed his lips as Stiles hands then roamed: one up to her chest to earn a gasp from Chloe, and then one to the small of her back holding her to him. Chloe broke apart for air panting while Stiles again attacked her neck this time making animal noises earning a laugh from Chloe. Chloe ran her fingers through his hair and sighed "I really do need to get going as much as I would love to continue" she said side-stepping away from him. Stiles gave her a pouty look

"Boob time is always cut short" he said pitifully making Chloe laugh again.

"If none of the other sleep techniques work for you tonight, call me, and if me talking about Martin Luther's 95 thesis's starting the protestant reformation doesn't work, then I'll come over and have sex with you till you do sleep" she joked while walking backwards towards her house with a large warm smile. Stiles got a large dopey smile on his face and nodded

"Deal".

"Goodnight" she called behind her turning around to walk across the grass to her house.

"Night" she heard behind her and she smiled to herself as she walked across the yard. She turned around to glance back at him to find him still leaning against his jeep watching her leave and she blushed.

*I'm hoping you're sensing the edge of creepiness in a "changed Stiles" with that last line*