Chapter 30: Mother is the Name for God In The Lips and Hearts of Little Children

"I remember the werewolves coming to the apartment. There are moments, feelings, noises. I remember voices. And Tyler. He was screaming. The next thing I know I'm hanging in a dark room, desiccating and so I know time has passed but not how much or where I am. Then I'm on the back of a bike with - the girl." Elena's head snapped up, her eyes fixing on the door. "The woman! She rescued me. If anyone knows where Tyler and the others are, she will. And she was hurt. We should make sure she's okay."

"And she why a total stranger would want to help us," Damon huffed.

"The girl," Melissa shook her head, "of course, I almost forgot. When she came in - when you both came in - she was barely conscious, but she was asking for the Alpha." She turned toward Derek.

"And you're just mentioning this now, why?" Damon crossed his arms.

"Maybe I was a little preoccupied," Melissa waved her hands around her. "You know, helping save your girlfriend. Keeping the other doctors and nurses apart from Meredith away so they don't start asking questions - like how she is alive and why she came in here looking like a corpse. Do you want me to keep going here?"

"Where is she?" Derek asked and when Melissa responded, the werewolf was out the door before she'd finished speaking.

Caroline followed and the two stepped inside an empty room.

"Spread out," Derek ground his teeth. "Find her."

And if his voice was a little too rough for her liking, Caroline didn't mind this time because Tyler was there too now and she was feeling everything the wolf was.

Elena groaned and pushed her face into the pillow. Damon was at the door, slamming it closed as a bleeding patient was wheeled down the hall before anyone else even noticed.

"I need more, Damon." Elena glanced at the door and then longingly at the emptied blood bag beside her.

"I'm not leaving you alone."

"I'll stay," Melissa moved forward. "From what I'm told, you're hearing is just as good as werewolves. If anyone so much as knocks on the door, I'll scream. Okay?"

Damon gave his girlfriend a weighty look before slipping outside.

"Thank you," Elena relaxed. "I'm so happy to see him, I am. I can feel how worried he is about me. My head is pounding. My whole body hurts. I just need a second to breathe."

Melissa nodded, watching as the girl sank deeper into her pillows and then flinched when brown eyes snapped open.

"She was getting paid."

"What's that?"

"The girl that saved me. She said she was getting paid to do it. Why just me? Why didn't she save Tyler and the others?"

"I don't know."

There was a beat where Elena just looked at the door, seeing a different door and hearing different noises behind it. The words came pouring out and she was suddenly speaking to this stranger before she could stop herself.

"I was there. I was there the whole time. What if Tyler was there all that time too? What if they all were being hurt like I was? And I just left. I could've helped them. I could've - "

"Hey, hey." Melissa sat down on the edge of the bed. "Survivor's guilt is not going to help save them now, okay? Look, I don't know much about what is all going on, but Scott's told me enough. Sounds like you were taken for a different reason than the werewolves. Scott says that this group, these what do you call them, Alphas, were after Derek's - Betas? - from the start. Even if you got them out, the Alphas might have just taken them back again, and killed you in the process. I saw you when you came in. You were barely alive. There's nothing you could've done for them."

And when Elena felt Melissa McCall take the young girl's hand in her own, she couldn't help but close her eyes, picturing her mother or Jenna standing there. It was something Damon never would have been able to give her. A different kind of comfort. A different kind of love. Elena didn't know the nurse, but she could feel it pouring out of the woman with every squeeze of her fingers. The love of a mother.


His mother was smiling over at him when he got the news. Smiling like she always was from that picture he kept by his computer. Like she was proud of him. Too bad she had nothing to be proud of.

Stiles tossed his cell phone onto his desk, leaning back into his chair. Damon's vampire girlfriend was back and alive, no thanks to him. The photograph of his mother stared back at him, and he ran shaking hands through his hair. This magic that he now possessed had flowed through her. Had flowed through his entire bloodline, all the way back to some crazy powerful woman who saved werewolves and took part in werewolf and vampire wars. And what had he done? Lit some candles? Made things fly around the room? Sure, he could create a pretty decent barrier or cloaking or protection spell now, whatever they assumed the Alphas were using to hide their captives. But he still couldn't detect one. What good was accessing these powers if they weren't even any help?

"She would be proud, you know."

Stiles nearly fell out of his chair before righting himself and spinning around, clutching at his heart and glaring at his now open door. He wasn't sure what made him angrier. The fact that the man could always sneak up on him, or that he seemed to be able to read Stiles' mind half the time.

"Holy - Doc! Warn a guy next time," Stiles shook his head. "What are you even doing here? This whole going from you barely giving us any answers besides vague cookie fortunes, to now regularly showing up in my bedroom is getting a little creepy."

"You didn't show up for our training, or answer your phone."

"Yeah - how did you get my phone number again?" Stiles stood and crossed the room, realizing he had no reason for doing it before pretending to busy himself with picking up the week's collection of discarded clothing. "Besides, didn't you hear? The vampire girl is back, safe and sound. No thanks to me. Shouldn't you be with everyone else, chasing down new leads or whatever?"

"I have a pretty good feeling I'm right where I need to be." Deaton stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

"Well, at least we're back to fortune cookies again." Stiles threw a few shirts into a hamper before falling back into his chair with a sigh.

"So, why aren't you with everyone else, chasing down those new leads?"

"First day of school tomorrow. Gotta finish summer reading and all that. Besides, did you suddenly forget that I got kicked out of that band way back in the beginning of summer?"

"Why do I have a feeling that something like that wouldn't have stopped you before?"

Deaton leaned against the wall, and Stiles turned away, ducking to escape that knowing look.

"I knew her, you know."

Stiles blinked, glancing over at the man for just a moment.

"Not very well, of course. But enough. Small towns, after all. She brought in a dog once. It was pregnant. She said her son had found it in the -"

"Backyard," Stiles breathed out.

"Said he begged her, again and again, to keep it. But she was allergic. So, instead, she and that boy came to the clinic every day to check on her until the puppies were born. And then they made certain that the mother and the puppies all were adopted by good families."

"Why do you suddenly care so much?" The boy finally burst, leaping from his chair. "You're not my boss. Go give Scott some life coaching, huh? I don't even really understand who you are or how you fit into any of this. Is it the magic? My power? You want something, like Damon did?"

"All I want," Deaton said, stepping closer, "is for you to know your own potential."

"Potential," Stiles scoffed, staring down at the photograph before sighing, sinking on the edge of his bed. "She had the potential for magic too, right?"

"That is correct. Why do you ask?"

"Do you, do you think it could have helped her? I mean, when she got sick."

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Sometimes magic and the supernatural don't hold all of life's answers. Sometimes life is just life and nothing we do, mystical or otherwise, is going to stop it from happening."

"But maybe, right?"

"Yes, maybe. But, Stiles, your mother never experienced that spark, that magical awakening, that you did. Generations upon generations of ignorance of their gifts. That sort of subconscious suppression. It's a miracle you were able to reach down and conjure it at all."

There was long pause where neither spoke, Deaton watching the boy carefully while Stiles just stared down at his hands.

"So, you think," the boy breathed in and out, "maybe, it could help, someone else, someone like her? I mean, someone sick - like her?"

Deaton took another measured step forward.

"Like who?"

"Like - like me."