Authors Note: HEYO! XD Please tell me what you think; I would love to know XD I own nothing and no one apart from the following: Ms Scarlet Johnson, Octavian, Jasmine (Jaz), Miguel, Sasha,Janice (J), Jessie, Luna (Lu/LuLu), Grace (Gracie), Olivia Bishop (Olive/Livy, Liv), Skylar Harvelle (Sky), Owen Palmer, Jason, Martin and Callum.
JUST SO YOU KNOW: like everyone else, I have no idea what Stiles' real name is, so I'm going along with what everyone else puts :) and I've made his middle name up XD
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P.S. I know it's been a while, but I've been having a lot of issues with family, University, my anxiety, etc. It's kind of knocked me off of my writing. Trust me when I say I'm trying to write for my fics as fast as I can.
Chapter 24
Stiles
The next morning - Sunday, July 8th - I woke up. Sitting up as fast as I could, I brought my hands in front of my face, staring at my fingers and counting them under my breath. Over and over, I had to make sure there were no extras. I had to make sure I hadn't slipped any further...
I was too caught up in counting them that I didn't register the movement next to me. I didn't notice until something brushed against me.
I was off of the bed faster than I could blink. I pushed myself into the corner on the other side of the room, grabbing the closest thing to me to try and defend myself. Not that there was anything that would have particularly worked... After my 'Melt Down', as I had taken to calling it, Derek had removed anything sharp or potentially dangerous from my room, not that he realised I could easily modify anything in the room. When I was younger, before Ms Johnson's rules had been fully ingrained into me, I would create makeshift weapons to protect myself... Safe to say, it hadn't taken long for that to be beaten out of me.
I couldn't keep myself from shaking, I could barely keep hold of the object in my hands. Whatever it was kept sliding in my grip, no matter how tight I had hold of it.
"Stiles..." a hushed voice called out to me. "It's alright."
My ears were ringing. My head was pounding. I could heard all these whisperings starting up again, their voices banging against my skull.
"Stiles, just calm down." the voice sounded again, calm and steady. "It's just me - Derek."
Derek.
I lost hold of the object in my hand, hearing it land on the floor with a quiet thud.
It's only Derek.
I looked back down at my hands, trying to count them again, but I couldn't see through the blur. I could feel my chest heaving, no matter how calm I tried to keep. I was practically caving in on myself, gathering myself into a tight ball. I just wanted it to end...
The moment something touched my shoulder, I lashed out.
I hit.
I punched.
I scratched.
I did whatever I could to try and dislodge the hand.
But then I heard the voice again. I heard Derek's voice. That was when the hitting turned to grabbing, clinging onto him as hard as I could, hoping against hope that it might help to ground me.
I just wanted everything to stop.
Derek
It took some time to convince Stiles to leave his room and go downstairs. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, he was shaking violently... It wasn't difficult to see that he was absolutely terrified. Even when I got him into the living room, he wrapped himself up with a blanket, refusing to move from his seat on the couch.
I couldn't decide what to do with myself. One moment I was sitting on next to him, then I was in the kitchen to give him some space, next I was standing in the doorway of the living room. How was I supposed to know what to do in such a situation, when I didn't even know what was going on. I had looked up Frontotemporal Dementia the night before, reading anything and everything I could about it. I had even asked Melissa a bit more about it, just so I knew I knew everything I could about it. Melissa knew more than anyone... She had access to Stiles' Mom's files. And Melissa had been around when she was being treated. I had learnt what had happened to Claudia Stilinski, I had tried to match what was happening to Stiles to what I had been told.
All I could do was hope there was another explanation.
Just after lunch, I was back to sitting in the kitchen. I had sat with Stiles, trying to get him to eat something and, when he wouldn't, I ate next to him. My wolf was pacing, growling and whimpering softly. He wanted to come out, he wanted control. I would have let him, if I knew exactly what he was going to do and that Stiles wouldn't be frightened.
Sighing, I dropped my head onto my folded arms, which were resting on the table. I wasn't cut out to be an Alpha, Laura was supposed to be next. I never wanted to be an Alpha! I had no idea what I was doing... Yes, Mom helped me when I really needed it, otherwise she let me figure it out for myself.
"Why is this so hard?" I muttered to myself.
"I can't help but think that too, sometimes." Mom's voice said from behind me.
Turning slightly, to look over my shoulder, I found her walking towards me. She ran a hand, lightly, through my hair as she passed, sitting into the chair next to me, laying that same hand over one of my own.
"Hey, Bunny." she said, softly, smiling and she rubbed the back of my hand with her thumb. "He hasn't moved, huh?"
"Not an inch." I huffed. "Unless ritually counting his fingers counts as moving."
Dropping my head down the stare at the table, I shook my head. What else could I do?
"I don't know what to do, Mom." I whispered. "I don't know how to help him."
"I know, Bunny. But have you thought that, maybe, right now, he just needs you to be there for him?" Mom told me. "He's terrified, he probably wants someone to be there next to him. You don't need to have all the answers, Bunny."
I wondered if she realised just how untrue that was...
It took me, around, half an hour to do as Mom suggested and just sit with Stiles. Moving around didn't seem to help and, if I was honest, sitting with him made me feel a little better. My family had joined us one by one, Jessie and Luna situating themselves next to and on Stiles, the others placing themselves in their usual seats. Everyone spoke softly, making sure not to startle Stiles, but wanting to give him something else to focus on. Even when the rest of my Pack turned up, they sat closer to Stiles than I had ever seen before.
Stiles remained silent through it all. He didn't reply to anything said to him, or acknowledge it in anyway. His fingers would twitch occasionally, his mouth moving slight as he mimed the numbers one to ten over and over. It was the only movement he made.
Scott's concern was so palpable that I would have been able to slice it with my claws. He kept fiddling with Allison's hair and fingers, pressing his side into Stiles' leg and leaning his head on Stiles' knee. I could barely see his furrowed eyebrows and the fact he was gnawing on his bottom lip. Not that I blamed him. Scott had seen, first hand, how this illness had affected Stiles before there was a chance he could have it himself. What would it do to Stiles if it came back he did have this form of dementia?
I doubted if anyone would be able to handle it.
I barely listened to the conversation. If someone spoke to me directly, I wouldn't hear them, not until someone hit, or threw something at, me. I just couldn't stop watching Stiles, just waiting for some kind of reaction from him. A twitch, a smirk, anything. I just wanted him to show some sort of sign that he was still alive inside his head. But nothing. He just stared straight ahead, looking as if he wasn't even there at all.
How am I supposed to fix this?
That was when we heard it.
There was this sudden fluttering, a shift in the air.
I could hear more heartbeats - four, to be exact.
Then a voice spoke:
"Lucy, I'm home."
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