A/N: Wow! I was pleasantly surprised to the reactions I've been getting on this little ditty. Seriously has made the past few days a lot more pleasant. I made a cover for the story today and managed to write this out while my life was chaos as well (nice parallel title). This story has become my refuge to help keep me from freaking out or stressing out with all that I have going on. I do have a video I edited of Stiles… just messing around trying to learn my Adobe programs better for the movie I'm working on… I thought about uploading it but it's over a Gig….might compress it more and upload it… goes along good with this story I think. I apologize in advance for any typos or grammatical errors… I did this with a million things and interruptions today at work… I hope you enjoy! Find me on Tumblr… Chasechick!

Chapter 4

Chaos Descending

Stiles rode silently in the passenger seat as Melissa drove the short distance to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, a building he was still all too familiar with. She pulled into the drop off bay and exited the car coming back with a wheel chair. She opened the door and Stiles was about to argue but the expression on her face and the ache in his muscles made him bite his retort. She wheeled him quickly into the waiting room and exchanged a few words with the on call at the desk.

After a short conversation that Stiles couldn't hear Melissa strapped his hospital band around his wrist and wheeled him down to a waiting empty room. "I'm getting a room? Don't they usually just do this stuff in the ER?" Stiles asked as Melissa put the brakes on the chair to help him to the bed.

"Well I called in a favor. But I hate to break it to you kiddo but I think you might be in for an overnight or two." Stiles closed his eyes and grimaced in pain as he lay back on the bed, the pain both physical and emotional. "You never know though, you could surprise me and get out of here early, we'll see what we can do okay?" She asked him kindly as she touched his chest. Again he felt emotion swell up in his chest for her kindness. She was going out of her way to take care of him, she should be home resting before her next shift but here she was holding his hand… like a mother. When this was over he vowed to thank her properly and while he was at it he might mention to Scott that he should thank his mother more often for putting up with his shenanigans as well.

Melissa walked over to a closet in the corner and produced the God awful hospital gown and a fresh blanket for him and proceeded to remove his shoes and pants. When she got to his shirt she frowned in thought, "You aren't overly fond of this shirt are you?"

"W-Why?" Stiles asked confused.

"Well if it hurts too much to pull it over your head I'm going to have to cut it off you." She waited for him to answer.

"Okay I guess… It's not a big deal." He answered and she moved to the nurse's station without another word and came back with a pair of scissors and effectively snipped the shirt from him. In the fluorescent light of the hospital room his bruises looked even more ghastly than they had in the dim light of his room. His shoulder was mottled in purple and yellow and it had swollen since he had last looked at it. His ribs too were sporting a nasty purple bruise that went all the way down his hip and disappeared beneath the hem of his boxer shorts. Thankfully he was allowed to keep those on; at least he wouldn't be flashing his butt to the world.

"The doctor will be here in just a minute to check you over but I'm sure he'll order some scans and x-rays before we do anything. If you are okay for a moment I'm just going to call the school and tell them where you are okay?" She asked. He simply nodded in response as his heart began to pound in his chest. When she left he took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself. It was ridiculous that he could deal with being hunted by werewolves, werewolf hunters, kanimas and psychopaths in general but he couldn't deal with sitting in a hospital room alone for more than ten minutes.

Melissa returned with a doctor before he was able to hyperventilate completely and he tried to act cool and calm as he gave her a smile. He clenched his hand on his uninjured side around the sheets to hide the trembling that had started the moment he came into the room. The doctor was an older man who had crinkles around his eyes as if he had laughed a lot.

"Morning Stiles. I'm Doctor Brighton; Melissa says you had a nasty accident at school yesterday huh?" He flipped open a chart that Melissa must have filled in. At least he didn't have to explain how it happened again. He moved over to the side of Stiles's bed pulling down the top of the gown to take a look at his shoulder. His hands were warm and steady but Stiles still jumped when he made contact. The doctor didn't say anything just shot him a warm smile and looked over the injury. He moved down to his hand and held his hand off the bed by the tips of his fingers. "Can you move your fingers for me?" He asked and Stiles complied though he grimaced with the pull of the muscles. "Okay that's good." He gently returned Stiles's hand to the bed and proceeded to look his rib and side over. He felt his abdomen asking for tender spots. He moved down to Stiles's hip and then slid his shorts down to see how far the bruising had spread. When he passed over the hip bone a whimper escaped him as much as he tried to hold it in but it had felt like someone had stuck a hot poker to his skin.

"Sorry about that, that's obviously very tender." The doctor apologized as he pulled the hem of the shorts back into place. He made some notes on his chart and set it back down. He pulled out a pen light and instructed Stiles to follow his finger. He felt around his head and neck as Melissa had done. "Okay now I'll lower the bed so you can be flat and we'll carefully roll you to your side so I can see your back okay?" He asked as he lowered the bed with the touch of a button. Melissa moved to the other side of the bed and with her gentle pull and the practiced aid of the doctor he was on his uninjured sign without too much discomfort or effort on his part. Again the doctor looked over his injuries with gentle hands before returning Stiles to his back and slowly moving the bed to a semi reclined position.

"Well Melissa looks like you were spot on with your assessments as usual." He smiled kindly at her and she smiled back as she pulled Stiles's hand from the clenched sheet and pried his fingers apart and clasped it in between both of hers. Somehow the action seemed to calm him just a bit as he waited to hear his prognosis. "We can't know for certain until we get some scans and x-rays. With injuries of this magnitude I think we should go with head, neck, shoulder, chest, hip and leg x-rays, get a CT scan of his head and neck and spine and if we need to we can get an MRI of anything we need further depth on. Once we get those out of the way I'll have them bring you back here and get you something for the pain while we get the scans read. I'll see you in a while Mr. Stilinski."

The Doctor smiled and disappeared through the door and was gone. Another nurse came in and spoke with Melissa but Stiles heard her tell the other nurse she'd handle taking him for his scans. He was grateful for her presence and shuddered at the thought of going through this on his own with a bunch of strangers.

She wheeled him to radiology, another wing he associated with doom. It was here his mother had gotten an x-ray that had shown a mass. It was here they found out it had spread and was inoperable. The thought caused a shudder to run through him and Melissa placed a warm hand on his uninjured shoulder in reassurance.

Luckily the radiology department was deserted on a Friday morning. They lay him on the cold counter and positioned him every which way to get the x-rays. Then he was wheeled to CT scan. He was shivering by now because the room felt like walking into a refrigerator. The hard table they strapped him to was unforgiving and uncomfortable, but the hardest part was being told not to move for nearly twenty minutes.

By the time he had gotten back into the wheel chair and was on his way back to his room he was aching horrible and he felt like he was going to throw up. Melissa was talking to him but her voice was muffled and sounded far away. His skin was clammy and his stomach churned. He was wheeled back into his room and he batted away the hands on arms. "I think I'm going to be sick," he didn't want to throw up all over or in front of anyone but he could feel it coming no matter how much he tried to stop it. Melissa had quickly pulled out a catch basin in the bedside table and thrust it under his mouth as he threw up.

He was shaking so badly when he finished that Melissa wiped him with a cloth and then got a cold cloth wiped the back of his neck and began talking softly to him. It was a few minutes before he could make himself listen to what she was saying. He whispered out a hoarse apology as she helped him back into the bed. He curled up on his uninjured side and she popped the safety rail in place before piling blankets on him to ease his chill.

"You have nothing to be sorry for at all Stiles. Are you still feeling sick?" She asked softly as she ran her hand over his forehead and he had a fleeting memory of his mother doing that when he was sick.

"No I'm all right." He said as he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.

He was resting with his eyes closed when he heard movement by the door and squinted through his eyes to see his tired father rush through the door.

He whispered to Melissa apparently thinking Stiles was sleeping. "How is he?" he asked.

"He just had a bunch of x-rays and a CT scan and we're waiting on the results. He just got sick but he's been handling it okay… it's tough for him being here, can't say as I blame him." She said sadly.

He heard his father sigh tiredly as he took in the news. "I'm going to stay here as long as I can but I now have two missing persons with frantic parents. I've got my deputies on the very few leads I have."

"You need to rest to you know. You can't save everyone if you are dead on your feet." Melissa admonished him.

"Look who's talking." His father chuckled.

Good God! Stiles thought, they were flirting! If he had anything left in his stomach it might have made a reappearance. He loved them both dearly but having to hear their awkward attempts at flirting made him squeamish.

Luckily a nurse entered a moment later to spare him anymore. Though what she brought with her was enough to make him wish otherwise. A lunch worker was behind her and sat a tray of food on the table and disappeared. The food was the furthest thing in his mind as the nurse set up shop next to him. She smiled at him and if he had been anyone other than the patient he would have checked her out. She was young and cute but she held several blood draw tubes and an IV pack. "I'm just going to take some blood and then we'll hook you up with an IV line and get some fluid into you and something to help with the pain." She told him with a smile on her face as if she looked forward to torturing him. It was Beacon Hills… so maybe she was a dominatrix on the side… you never could tell.

He bit his lip to hide his terror and his eyes jumped around the room to find a safe place to rest his gaze. Surprisingly his father had moved to his side, he shifted his hands as if he wanted to touch him but wasn't sure where. The nurse was putting the IV in his uninjured side so his father decided to brush the top of his head and down his neck like he had when he was young.

"So what is this about missing kids?" Stiles asked shakily trying to distract himself with a conversation.

His father continued to brush his sweaty brown and head as he answered his question not arguing with him that he needed to keep it private. "I've got two sixteen year olds missing. Not friends or known friends, nothing suspicious in their behavior, their parents say they weren't the type to run away. One didn't come home from school after leaving yesterday and the other didn't get to school this morning after leaving from home. I've got little else to go on." Stiles had felt the pinch of the needle as it entered his vein but he focused on the case. Could this be what Stiles had been waiting for? Was the feeling he had of something constantly lurking coming to fruition? Was chaos about to descend on Beacon Hills?

It was these morbid thoughts that allowed him to make it through the blood draw and the IV insertion without falling into a complete panic attack. He glanced nervously as she hung the bag and produced another needle. "This just goes right in the line, no need to prick you anymore." The nurse told him and he gave her a nervous smile, apparently she had been able to tell he was nervous despite his charade. "This might burn a little going in and it might make you feel a bit light headed and sleepy. You should try to eat a little lunch if you can and get some rest." She said as she pushed the plunger on the needle.

There was a moment of burning followed by a quickly developing lightness. Of course the only pain medication Stiles had ever taken was over the counter so he had no tolerance. His father pushed the tray over and Stiles pulled the misshapen role off the tray and nibbled it slowly. His eyes were growing heavier by the moment as the pain receded a little, it no longer felt like he'd been run over a by a freight train, it lessened to a that of a car running him over, but it was a welcome improvement.

He gulped down his juice and pushed the uneaten food on the tray away as his head lolled back and he sighed in exhaustion. His father retreated from his bed after adjusting his blankets, Stiles was asleep before his father had sat in the chair in the corner of the room to rest.