Stiles ends up spending most of the night on the internet, stalking local news sites and his classmates' social media accounts (plus one very long rabbit trail down a Wikipedia black hole about parallel universes) in the hopes of finding some clue as to anything abnormal that might explain what happened to him. Or at the very least give him an idea of whether the supernatural even exists in this reality.

At some point between finding a website for a local ghost hunting group (which he eventually figures out consists of a single forty-year-old man who lives in his mother's basement) and nearly spending two hundred dollars to have his fortune read over the phone, he falls asleep with his face planted on his keyboard.

Insistent buzzing startles him awake.

He swipes at the drool on his cheek, searching for his phone among the mess of books and papers overflowing from his desk. It's right around here somewhere, he can hear it… Ah!

Reaching for the phone, which is perched on the edge of The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe (the only book in the house he'd managed to find that had any correlation to the supernatural), he manages to overextend his precarious balance and topple to the floor. The heavy book falls after him, smacking him in the face on the way down.

Cursing, he stretches to snag the phone from under the desk.

"Hello?" he croaks.

"Oh, so you are alive," comes the familiar voice on the other end.

Stiles winces, rolling onto his stomach so he can prop himself up on his elbows. "Hey, Lydia."

"I mean, it's one thing to skip out after practice, but to ignore my texts all night? What is going on, babe?"

"Uh, yeah, no," he says, fumbling to manufacture an excuse so she'll stop sounding so angry. "I mean, I'm so sorry. I just, uh, I didn't feel good, so I went to bed early. That's all." Might as well use his tried and true response to everything of late.

There's a pause and he screws up his face, willing her to accept it.

"Are you sure there's nothing else going on?" He drops his forehead to the floor—of course she didn't buy it. "You've been acting really weird."

"No, everything's fine," he assures her. "Just have a little bit of a cold." He coughs dramatically a couple of times to demonstrate.

"Okay." She still sounds unconvinced. "Well, Jackson said you missed half the day yesterday, so I'll stop by and give you my notes."

"No, no. That's okay. No need to come over." He really doesn't want to deal with Lydia today. He's got enough problems without adding that to the mix.

"No, it's no problem, babe," she replies. "I'm out getting stuff ready for the party anyway. I'll be there in a half hour."

He makes another face, which doesn't at all match his overly enthusiastic tone. "Okay, great, babe. See you in a bit." He doesn't wait for her to say goodbye before he hangs up.

Flopping bonelessly on the floor, he groans in defeat. Great. Still in the Darkest Timeline. He was kind of hoping things would magically resolve themselves overnight, but of course it couldn't be that easy.

Well, in that case, might as well accept that he was going to be stuck here a while. He sits up, narrowly avoiding braining himself on the corner of his desk, and stares at the explosion of crap he accumulated on his desk. Plus, there's clothes and junk all over his floor from when he'd gotten distracted and curious about who alternate Stiles really was.

Where his detective skills failed him at finding anything useful about how one becomes stuck in a parallel dimension, he did manage to deduce a few things about himself by tearing through all his stuff. It seemed that in most ways, this Stiles' early life was exactly the same as he remembered, other than gaining a baby sister when he was four. Still, that didn't change all that much about his prepubescent experiences. He and Scott still met in Pre-K and became best friends, he was still the same hyperactive kid who was always getting in trouble.

There were some small differences, of course. In his reality, Stiles' mom had begun showing symptoms of her illness as early as when he started kindergarten, and by the end of second grade, she'd been hospitalized full time. This Stiles hadn't spent his evenings and weekends bouncing between the hospital and Scott's house (there was a good chunk of time where Stiles had practically lived with the McCalls), and instead had played little league and soccer after school. Because of that, it looked like he'd had more friends than just Scott for all those years.

And then, the summer after fourth grade, there was a sudden and dramatic shift. Because instead of being home that summer, grieving his mother's death and trying to keep his dad afloat, he'd gone to summer camp. And at summer camp, he'd met Jackson Whittmore, and the two had apparently become best buds.

He didn't have any evidence of what had actually happened between him and Scott, but it was clear he'd been replaced as Stiles' best friend because suddenly all the photos were of him and Jackson. Jackson was the one sitting next to him at his birthday party, and Jackson was at his house playing video games, and he and Jackson did the sixth grade rock-collection project together.

To be fair, it looked like Jackson had been a normal and decent human back then. All the douchey stuff seemed to be a more recent development.

It's all very interesting and enlightening, but Stiles made quite the mess obtaining that information, and now Lydia's coming over. He considers tidying up, because even though it isn't his Lydia, he still has the innate need to impress her. But it's going to take a while to clean all this up. He decides he doesn't care that much.

He's definitely going to take a shower, though. He cares a little.

Once he's cleaned up and dressed in some normal clothes he found while digging through his closet (Lydia had evidently been lying when she said she burned them all), he heads downstairs to grab some breakfast while he waits for her. He finds his dad at the table nursing a coffee, files and papers strewn about him in a facsimile of Stiles' room.

"Morning," the Sheriff says without looking up.

"Hey," Stiles grunts, going for the coffee pot. He takes a deep breath of the aromatic steam, letting it out as a satisfied sigh. He'd missed his cup of coffee yesterday. Not going to make that mistake again. "Where's Mom?"

"She took Mikayla to the mall to help her pick out a new outfit for tonight."

Stiles can't say he's sad about his sister being out of the house for a while, but he wouldn't mind hanging out more with his mom. Sliding into the chair across from his dad, he sips at his pleasantly scalding coffee. "Whatcha working on?" he asks, tilting his head to snoop on the papers.

The Sheriff blinks at him, swirling his cup like he's debating whether to answer him or tell him to mind his own business. "Someone's been robbing gas stations," he eventually says. "They've hit five in the last two months."

Stiles pulls one of the files closer and flips the page to look at a grainy photo of a masked person with a gun. "How do you know it's the same person?"

"We don't for sure," the Sheriff sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But they have the same M.O., so we assume they're connected."

"Hm." Pushing aside the first folder, Stiles takes another and starts leafing through the police report.

"You know, you're not really supposed to be looking at those," his dad complains.

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him. "What, you think I'm in league with the criminal mastermind who's hitting up gas stations?"

"Maybe I should, given your recent penchant for criminal activity," the Sheriff says smartly, snatching the file from his hand. "But no, I'm more referring to the fact that this is an ongoing investigation, and therefore confidential."

Stiles gives him a cheeky grin. "Not my fault you have it spread all over the table for the entire world to see."

"Don't you have video games you should be playing?" the Sheriff asks, squinting at him.

Stiles takes another sip of coffee, tilting his chair back to balance on two legs. "No, Lydia's coming over in a few minutes."

His dad frowns disapprovingly. "Stiles, I said no friends. That includes girlfriends."

"No, I know," Stiles defends quickly. "She said she's bringing the work I missed from class yesterday, but if you want to kick her out when she gets here…"

The Sheriff lets out a long suffering sigh and gets up to refill his mug. "No, I suppose that's fine. But tell her she can't stay, okay? You're still under lockdown, mister."

"Got it," Stiles agrees, more than okay with that. As much as he's fantasized about Lydia Martin treating him the way she's been treating him in this reality, it feels wrong. Like he's cheating or taking advantage of her or something.

Lydia shows up a few minutes later, notebook in one hand and paper shopping bag in the other. The Sheriff greets her with a perfectly polite hello, but the forced smile on his face is enough to clue Stiles in that he is not a fan of the girl. Huh. Interesting.

"So I still need to pick up the beer from Madison, but otherwise I think everything's set for tonight," Lydia says once they're out of earshot.

Stiles frowns, leading her up the stairs toward his room. "What's tonight?"

"The party!" Lydia tells him, shaking the bag in her hand for emphasis. "The one we've been planning for, like, a month! Remember?"

He eyes the bag, vaguely remembering her saying something about him trying on shirts yesterday. "I can't go to a party tonight. It's my mom's birthday dinner."

They stop in front of his door and Lydia looks up at him with that expression that says he's done something wrong. "You said you could get out of that, babe."

"Yeah, well, I tried, but you know my family," he says with a shrug, even though he has no idea if this is the kind of thing his family would do in this reality.

It must be, because she accepts it. "Okay, fine," she sighs in obvious annoyance, letting herself into his room. She blinks at the mess, but doesn't comment, stepping gracefully over a pile of CDs and smoothing out a corner of the unmade bed to perch herself on. "Just come after dinner, then."

"No, Lydia, I can't," he argues. "I'm grounded. As in, can't leave the house, got my keys taken away, grounded."

"Stiles," she whines, tossing the shopping bag and notebook on the bed impatiently. "What did you do this time?"

He fixes a stack of papers on his desk, squaring up the edges into a neat pile so he doesn't have to look at her. He doesn't like letting people down, even alternate Lydia, but the whole being grounded thing does provide a nice excuse to not have to attend whatever rich kid party she's trying to drag him to. "Doesn't matter. I just… I'll have to miss it."

Lydia fixes him with an irritated stare, and he tries not to fidget. "I can't believe you're bailing on me," she chastises, though her tone is more disappointed than angry. "Now I'm going to have to put up with Allison and her new boyfriend all by myself."

There's that rushing feeling again, like all the air has suddenly been sucked out of the room. "Wait, Allison?" he manages to ask. "Allison Argent?"

Lydia stands up, pacing in the little floor space there is. "Yes, Allison Argent. What other Allison would I be talking about? The party is at her house, dummy. Remember?" She starts wringing her hands. "She just hooked up with that Isaac kid—I honestly don't know why, he doesn't really have any friends and he's not even that good at lacrosse. But I guess Allison's always gone for the more simple ones. She likes that boyish charm, or whatever. Anyway, she won't stop talking about him. And the two of them are gonna be all over each other tonight, I just know it."

Stiles only half hears her rambling over the pounding of his heart. Allison is alive? Well, yeah, why not? If Scott had never been bitten here, Stiles would have never been possessed by the nogitsune, and Allison never would have… He can't quite wrap his mind around it.

"Look, I gotta go," Lydia is saying. "I still have a lot to do. But you better think of a way to make this up to me."

He nods, but his thoughts are too far away to think of a response.

If Allison is alive, that means Chris Argent is still around, and he might know something about werewolves.

Stiles might need to go to this party tonight after all.


After the bomb Lydia dropped on him this morning, Stiles imagined that he would have a hard time sitting through dinner with his family, but it turns out it's pretty easy to forget about his troubles when his mom is around. She's just as radiant as he remembers, her hazel eyes glittering with pure joy as she recounts funny stories from birthdays past. The time when she and his dad were dating and he'd given her a CD player ("You said you wanted one!" "I was expecting a ring!"). The time when Stiles was three and they'd found him covered in frosting, vehemently denying that he was the one who'd eaten half her cake off the counter. The time they'd all gotten food poisoning and spent two days clutching puke buckets and becoming far too invested in Days of Our Lives.

Stiles hangs on her every word, laughing with the rest of them at the memories, whether or not they're familiar. His dad has always told him that he got his storytelling abilities from her, but he'd forgotten just how good she was at it. The way she weaves in the details, capturing each of their voices perfectly. He could listen to her talk forever and never get tired of it.

More surprising is that he's actually warming up to Mikayla a bit, too. She's still a thirteen-year-old girl, and therefore automatically annoying in a lot of ways, but she's got a ruthlessly dry sense of humor and Stiles can appreciate that.

In addition, she's a total nerd. At one point, the two of them get into an argument about whether the Star Wars prequels had any merit to the overall universe or if they should be ignored as a travesty against what was one of the most perfect trilogies to ever exist, and she actually makes a couple of valid points. It's the kind of conversation he's always wished he could have with Scott, if the guy would ever freaking watch the movies.

He supposes if he had to have a sister, this one isn't so bad.

But arguably the best part of dinner is simply watching his dad. Stiles knows that his parents had a good relationship, if for no other reason than the utter devastation his dad experienced when she died. But Stiles was ten when she died, and as such was pretty oblivious to his parents' romantic relationship.

When Scott's parents got divorced, Stiles became aware for the first time that not all moms and dads get along. Up until then, he'd just assumed everyone's family worked like his. Through his teenage years, he began to appreciate more and more that his mom and dad had had something that not a lot of his friends' parents did. They had really loved each other, truly and deeply. Were they perfect? Of course not. But they had always supported each other, cared for one another, were committed to the vows they'd made.

There's a difference between knowing something and seeing it, though. Seeing the way Stiles' dad looks at his wife, completely enamored with her. The way he holds her hand, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. The way he leans in close to her when she laughs… Stiles can't remember the last time he saw his dad so happy.

For the first time in a long time, he feels the darkness wrapped around his heart uncoil just a little bit.

It's at this point he decides that he's not going to worry about figuring out how to get back to his reality, just for dinner. No, right now, he's going to soak this in, this perfect moment. Even if it is just a fantasy.

"You're awfully quiet tonight, Stiles," Claudia notices halfway through dinner. "What's on your mind?"

He freezes, chicken halfway to his mouth, as everyone turns toward him. He hadn't thought he was being especially quiet, he just hadn't had a lot to contribute to the conversation. But now his mom is looking at him like she thinks something's wrong, and his dad and Mikayla are looking at him like he better not say anything that will in any way mess up his mom's birthday.

"Uh, nothing much," he says, lowering his fork back to his plate. "Just, you know. School and stuff."

His mom nods, as if waiting for him to continue. When he doesn't, she asks, "And how is Lydia?"

"Fine," he shrugs. He really doesn't have much to say about her.

She's obviously not satisfied with these short answers he's giving. "She wasn't too heartbroken that we stole you away tonight?"

He squishes his mashed potatoes. She's giving off the same vibe his dad did earlier, that she might not be a big fan of his girlfriend. Well, he can't say he entirely disagrees, but that probably has more to do with him not being a fan of himself in this reality. "Oh, uh, no. She was fine with it."

"Hm." Claudia is still watching him thoughtfully, but he's not sure what she wants him to say. "You know," she says. "You could bring her around more often. Unless you're too embarrassed by us."

"Oh, he's definitely too embarrassed by us," Mikayla chimes in.

"Well, yeah," he snorts, trying to lighten the conversation. "You for sure."

"All I'm saying," his mom continues over them, "is that it's nice to see you every once in a while. Pretty soon you'll be off to college and then we won't see you at all."

"Mom—" he starts to say, seeing the tears forming in her eyes. What did he say?! Why is she getting upset?

"I'm sorry." She sniffs, laughing and running her fingers under her eyes to catch the moisture without messing up her makeup. "My annual birthday breakdown and I didn't even finish my first glass of wine yet."

The Sheriff puts his arm around his wife, rubbing her shoulder. "Claud," he gently chastises.

"I know, I know. I can't help it. They just grew up so fast. It feels like yesterday they were bringing me bouquets of dandelions and now Stiles has a girlfriend and—" She cuts herself off and smiles at her husband. "When did we get so old?"

Stiles wants to promise her that he's not going anywhere, that he'll never leave her. Anything to wipe those tears off her face. But he knows he can't. This isn't his home, not his life. He can't stay here, as much as a part of him wants to.

"You know, with the way the job market is these days, I might just have to move back home after college anyway," Stiles says instead. "And then you'll wish I wasn't around so much, eating all your food and taking up space."

This earns him the laugh he was hoping for.

"Oh, uh-uh," Claudia tells him, shaking her head. "The second you move out, I'm turning your room into an office. I'm tired of your father using our dining room table as his own personal crime board. No more murder pictures while I'm trying to eat."

"I clean up after myself," the Sheriff argues.

"Yeah, right, Dad," Mikayla scoffs.

"Hold on," Stiles adds, pretending to be offended. "The second I move out?"

The conversation turns back to easy jokes and teasing as his mom lays out all her plans for her and the Sheriff once they're empty nesters. She wants to finally go on that trip to Hawaii, and see some national parks, and maybe get a dog. Stiles' dad talks about retiring so he can finally get to those projects on the house they've been putting off. There's no question about whether or not they'll make it that far, no worry that a disease or supernatural creature will steal those dreams away from them.

Later that night, long after they've gone home to play Monopoly and subsequently given up (because no one ever finishes Monopoly), Stiles climbs out of his window to sneak off to the party. The middle-of-the-night February air is crisp and chilly, and he wraps his arms around himself, looking back at the quiet house behind him.

"It isn't real," he whispers to himself.

That doesn't ease the hollow feeling in his chest as he turns and walks away into the night.