The doctor hadn't lied. Stiles slept more often than he was conscious. It was beyond frustrating, because it meant Stiles lost track of time and no longer knew what day it was. He knew, at first, that Lady McCall was there to smile at him whenever he opened his eyes, just as she'd promised she would be. Then, some unknown time later, she was gone.

In her place was a young man. He was undeniably handsome, with short black hair and a dark caramel skin tone. He did not immediately notice Stiles was awake, which gave Stiles enough time to notice that his jaw line was slightly uneven. His dark eyes were focused on a book, but they flickered to Stiles for a brief moment, and then all of the young man's attention was on Stiles.

He grinned. "Hey there," he said. "Sorry. My mother had some work to do, but I offered to take her place. I'm Scott McCall. Er. I mean." He flushed slightly and tried to refocus. "I am Lord McCall, Baron Posey. Gosh, that's a mouthful. But you can call me Scott."

"Okay."

It was tough saying anything, and Stiles coughed afterward. Scott was there in an instant, offering him water. Without words, the Baron helped Stiles to drink and then to eat a few pieces of food that had been left beside him on the table. Stiles had been hurt before, but he'd never felt this weak, this helpless. He was being surprisingly pathetic.

"What happened?" he asked when the food was gone.

Scott frowned. "You mean…"

"With… with the Argents." How had he gotten here? How bad were his injuries? He was so wrapped up that he didn't know where one injury ended and another began.

"Lord Argent-… no. Wait. I think I'll need to go back before that. Um. You were beaten by Earl Gévaudan. You're… I can't lie to you. You look terrible. Dr. Deaton says you've fractured a rib or two, some other kind of broken bones I think, and he had to give you a transfusion of blood when you arrived because you'd been bleeding so much. I'm not really good at the medical side of things. My mother is, though. She's kind of amazing. But anyway, I guess Lord Argent must have stopped his father, or else come upon you just as the beating ended. He rushed you to the hospital in Gévaudan, then soon after rushed you here. He was only waiting on word from my mother before he moved you again. They've been corresponding for awhile now."

"Lord Argent… saved me?" The man who almost never looked or spoke to him had saved his life? But then Stiles remembered hearing Lord Argent telling Lady McCall something about him – 'There's something you should know about Stiles,' he'd said. What pitiable thing had he told her? She looked at him with such fond sadness that Stiles was sure she'd heard all about poor, abused Stiles Stilinski.

"Yes. I don't believe even his father knows where you've been taken." Scott smiled, as though he were recounting something heroic. "You've been hidden away, my friend. It's only my mother, myself, and Dr. Deaton who know where you are now. And Lord Argent, of course."

"Well that's good at least," Stiles grunted. He tried to roll over but it hurt too much, and he was forced to stay on his back. "How… How long has it been?"

"Hm?" Scott pursed his lips and then shrugged. "A week, maybe?"

A week.

Stiles suddenly pushed himself up, gritting his teeth against the pain. Scott jumped up too, reaching out to try and support Stiles or push him back down – it seemed even he wasn't sure which was preferable.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "You- You should be lying down."

"How is Earl Beacon?" Stiles asked, panting through the pain. "He was- Ugh. He was ill. How is he now?"

"Earl Beacon?" Scott's face scrunched up in confusion. "He's fine. He had some kind of flu, but he's fine now."

"And his children?"

"Um. I believe his eldest daughter visited with her husband and child when they heard he was sick, but I don't know if they're still there. I suppose his youngest is still employed by the Duchess of Roden. And his sons were both with him during the illness. But they're all in fine health, if that's what you're asking. Are you alright?"

Stiles relaxed and tried to gently lay himself back down. It was only with Scott's help that he succeeded. Derek had not been poisoned, and his father was alive. Some good news, at last.

"I- Sorry." Stiles took a heavy breath and noted every point of pressure it caused in his chest. "I know the eldest Lord Hale. He'd just gone home to see his father when-"

"I understand." Scott smiled at him. "I worry about my friends all the time."

"That's… nice." Stiles winced at his choice of words. He could tell Scott was trying to be friendly and kind, but Stiles was too distracted by everything and he knew that Scott didn't truly understand. Scott could only understand if he knew about Stiles' secret relationship with Derek, and he doubted very much that he did.

"I hope," Scott continued in an unsure tone, "that you and I can be friends too?"

He was so earnest, and he had the same kind eyes as his mother. Stiles couldn't have fought against that kind of request even if he'd had the full use of all his limbs. Without meaning to, he cracked a smile and then looked away in embarrassment.

"Yeah, alright," he said, trying to play it off. "You seem like a good enough man."

"Great!" Never before had any person looked more like an excited puppy than this man, this Baron sitting beside him. It was downright adorable and would have totally pissed off Earl Argent. Stiles decided he liked it immensely.

The hospital was quiet and boring, but whenever Stiles was awake he could be sure of something interesting happening eventually. Baron Posey was the most unconventional lord Stiles had ever met. He would come sliding into the room after a sprint if he thought for even a second that Stiles might have been awake and alone. He often brought books and read them aloud to Stiles. They were amusing tales, but sometimes Stiles suspected Scott of embellishing them to make them even more hysterical. He didn't call him on it or complain. Those stories were some of his favorite moments of consciousness.

Other times, Scott brought animals in with him – all kinds of them. Normally a dog or a cat, but he once brought in a pig! He had a fondness for the raising and caring of animals, and admitted to having once snuck a ferret into a crowded opera house when it was young and ill and needed semi-constant supervision. How he hadn't been caught was a miracle. If it had been Stiles, the ferret would have gotten loose, scared half a dozen people, and probably hidden down some poor woman's cleavage for the body heat. His father would have been scandalized and yet unsurprised.

After a second week in the hospital, Dr. Deaton allowed Stiles to be removed from his secluded ward and transported to the McCall Manor. To his credit, Stiles took the first steps over the threshold without assistance, but it was mostly from pure stubbornness. He needed help almost immediately afterward. One of the damages Earl Argent had left him with was a fractured lower leg. Not as serious as a broken bone, but still a bitch to put pressure on, and he really shouldn't have been walking on it at all.

Dr. Deaton left Stiles with a wheelchair and medications stronger than the ones he'd used for his broken fingers. He wanted crutches, but Dr. Deaton argued that the stress placed on the rest of his body wasn't in his best interest. Besides his fractured leg, he'd also bruised several ribs (luckily though, none broken), and most of his upper body had been covered in purple and yellow blotches. Deaton couldn't be positive that nothing else was broken or misaligned until the bruising went down, so they had to play it safe. Stiles also had a black eye and broken nose from the incident, but both had generally healed by the time he arrived at his new place of residence.

The largest concern for Dr. Deaton was the head wound. All the kicking and sliding around Stiles had done had caused Stiles' head to collide several times with the stairs. One, he remembered – when he'd fallen forward and clacked his teeth so hard together that he'd actually been sent reeling. But the doctor assured him that the back of his head must have come into contact with the bottom stair at least twice, or else really hard once.

Although the damage didn't seem to have affected his memory or personality at all, everyone was advised to be on the lookout for dizziness or fainting spells, and Dr. Deaton warned that temporary memory loss was still a possibility. Stiles wasn't concerned about any of it, really. He was mostly immobile, so how could dizziness or fainting be a concern? And if he hadn't lost memory already, what more could happen?

Being pushed around in a chair at first sounded demeaning, but there again Scott defied the norm. Excited to show Stiles around, they got Stiles into the chair and then Scott pushed him around at speeds that could hardly be called safe. In long, straight halls, Scott would push off the floor and stand on the back of the chair so that they flew down the hall and more than once almost tipped over.

Lady McCall made sure all of their meals were easy on the stomach so that Stiles' healing body didn't reject the nourishment, and once an hour a servant magically appeared to offer Stiles a glass of water. At first it was cool, but it quickly became annoying. Stiles took the cups anyway because he knew Lady McCall was coming from a place of love and was trying to help his healing process, but he was rather sick of water after just three days.

Now that Stiles could move without being in extreme pain, he and Scott did most things together. They wandered the halls, they took turns telling terrible jokes, they pranked the staff. Over and over, Scott proved himself to be the most unconventional noble ever.

Sometimes, though, Scott had to be a serious noble. Once a day, Scott disappeared into a study to read over new reports delivered by the morning post. Sometimes his mother joined him and they used their combined experience to sort out the problems of their allotted lands.

The Posey lands were on the outskirts of Gévaudan, separate but close enough to make Stiles' skin crawl. The only way Earl Gévaudan and his daughter didn't know where Stiles was being housed was the willful ignorance of Lord Argent. If he'd gotten Stiles to safety, then it was only him standing between Earl Argent and Stiles ending up in a body bag. For the first time in their acquaintance, Stiles was extremely glad to know Chris Argent and wished he could thank the man personally.

Fainting, it turned out, was an actual concern. On their sixth flight down the longest hall in the estate, Stiles got a head rush, and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor with Scott over him and panicking. He'd been convinced he'd killed his new friend in his first week at the house. Dr. Deaton was summoned, but Stiles checked out fine. They were banned from speeding around the house at that point. Sad.

They amused themselves in less invigorating ways. Like reading. Or petting cats.

The McCall manor was home to an impressive library, though not as grand as the one at the Argent estate. Their selection of books was a bit different, though, so Stiles had plenty of new material to choose from. Unfortunately, many volumes were written in Spanish. This was great for Scott, but not so much for Stiles, who only spoke and read English… and very bad Latin.

They read a lot, as it was a low-stress activity, and if they got bored they would make fun of the books they were reading. Stiles realized that in a few short days, Scott had become one of his best friends. He was joking with the Baron in ways he couldn't joke with Allison, with anyone. It almost made him feel like he wasn't mostly on bed rest, because he was always doing something with Scott.

On the first Friday after his arrival, Stiles was sitting alone in the library. He'd been deposited there by Scott before the Baron had to scurry away to do Baron-y things, but Stiles was more than fine to read on his own. He'd have some funny material for when Scott joined him later.

The novel he was reading was actually rather good, but he kept getting distracted. The main character was falling in love with a man that very much sounded like Derek Hale, and it definitely didn't slip past Stiles' notice. After awhile, he actually had to put the book down for a breather.

"Damn," he murmured, looking around the library and then out of the window at the bushes.

There was a sudden spike of pain in his head and he shielded his eyes from the light of the window, which was frighteningly bright. It felt a lot like someone was stabbing him in the temple with a skinny needle, and he cried out without conscious thought. His mind filled with visions of Earl Argent, as though that madman were the one inflicting his current pain and laughing about it.

When the pain eased, he found himself curled up against the chair he'd previously been sitting in, only now he was on the floor. He was shaking and panting and, by the feel of it, sweating more than he'd like. One hand was gripping his face, his fingertips pressing against his temples. The other hand was held in a warm, strong hand.

Instantly, his mind flashed to Derek, to the way he'd grabbed Stiles' wrist to pull him from a panic attack, and he wondered if the same thing had happened here. His heart swelled and he ripped his free hand from his face.

"Derek?" he asked, too quick to realize his mistake.

It was Scott sitting beside him, his forehead knit in deep concern. His mouth was pressed in a thin line. "Scott," he answered softly. "Are you alright? Do you know where you are?"

Disappointment crushed Stiles, but he tried not to show it. "Yeah?... Yeah. Sorry. I- I don't know what happened. I'm fine now."

Though the Baron didn't look like he believed that for a second, he did release Stiles' hand and help him back into the chair without comment. He let Stiles go back to reading as though nothing had happened and took up a spot of his own in a neighboring chair. Stiles could feel the baron's eyes on him every few moments, and it made it impossible to keep reading.

He continued the pretense, however, until the dinner bell was rung and they were drawn down the hall to eat.

Dinner was edging on normal, with Lady McCall loosening up about what Stiles could and could not eat at this stage in his recovery. Scott delicately brought up Stiles' issue in the library, and Lady McCall knelt by Stiles to check his pupil reaction when she covered one eye and then rapidly removed the cover. She also had him feeling stupid by making his fingertips touch and bringing his pointer finger to his nose.

"I think he's alright," she said after a moment. "I can call on Dr. Deaton in the morning, but I'm sure he'll say the same thing. You're still healing from some rather traumatic injuries. There's bound to be a few setbacks, some side effects."

Stiles inwardly argued the word 'setbacks' but outwardly kept quiet. He wanted to ask a favor and didn't want to ruin the mood by being petulant. Once Lady McCall was back in her seat and the next course was being brought out, Stiles hazarded his request.

"Could I borrow some paper and ink? I'd like to… I have a letter I'd like to send out," he said. He wanted to let Derek know where he was and that he was alright. He wanted Derek to come see him.

Lady McCall smiled. "Of course you can," she said. "You don't need to ask. Consider our home yours. Would you like to use our scribe?"

"Liam is a great scribe," Scott said, but it came out in a tone that suggested Liam may not be the world's best scribe. "He's very- He's got flare."

Stiles choked on a laugh. "Thanks, but I'd actually prefer to write this one on my own."

"I'll show you where to find the supplies after dinner," Lady McCall assured him, and she smiled like this was the best request he could have asked for.

It was odd. Stiles wasn't accustomed to being given what he wanted with such an air of open generosity, and part of him really wanted to distrust it. And yet he knew the McCalls to be honest and without a malicious bone in their two bodies combined. Sure he'd only known them for about three weeks, but they'd stayed with him – a total stranger – in the hospital when he could barely stay conscious or feed himself. They'd let him into their home and shared their prosperity. Even though he was more immobile than ever, Stiles hadn't felt this… free in years.

He smiled and tried to hide it behind his hand, but Scott noticed and grinned back. Stiles kicked him under the table with his good leg, but it only made Scott smile wider.