So, yeah, I like this chapter a lot. There's a good amount of things that happen in this, and a few important things for later, and a few things that probably don't fit into the laws of magic, and a little explaining. So, I hope y'all like it.

Chapter 21: A Short Coma

"What's going on?" Kira shouted over the din of the crowd, a grin spreading her lips wide as she pumped her fist in the air, "Go Stiles! Go Derek! Go Scott! There's too many people to cheer for!"

"I don't know, but it's fun! Just shout 'go, team, go'!" Allison shouted back at her, her hand thrown into the air with Lydia's. Isaac stood behind her, shouting for Stiles and Scott instead of his alpha. "Go, team, go!" she shouted, giggling as Lydia wrapped her arm around her waist, dragging them close together.

Her fingers pressed into her mouth, Lydia whistled high and piercing. "Go, Cora! Beat them, hon!" she shouted. Cora swerved high above them, darting towards them. She slowed to a stop before them, Lydia dragging her forward into a kiss that was better suited to privacy before releasing her with a quick, playful slap to her upper thigh. Cora growled, wanting, before flying back into the fray, spotting the Snitch immediately.

Kira grinned, laughing wildly as she called to Scott again.

The game had been a mess for near the entire hour they'd been playing. The bludgers had already taken out five people, seeming particularly vicious that day, chasing after one player in particular until they had unseated that player or knocked them out completely. The snitch had been particularly devious, disappearing under or into people's robes, making them scream in surprise. Once every few times around the stadium, it dunked itself into a steaming beverage, popping out in a fountain of hot chocolate or tea or what have you. The quaffle, though usually not mobile unless it was being thrown from player to player, jumped from players' arms seemingly at random, landing on the field every few passes or throwing itself at the other team like a puppy trying to grab for a toy. It only seemed to settle in Stiles' or Derek's grasp.

'Ten points goes to Slytherin!' the announcer shouted enthusiastically as Stiles kicked the quaffle passed the goalie, hanging upside down from his broom. He righted himself, grinning.

Releasing a hoot of victory, Stiles spun around on his broom, ready to take off toward the middle of the fray. One moment, he was grinning, laughing as Derek flashed predatory red eyes at him from across the field to Erica and Danny's shouts, and in the next, his eyes went wide with terror before going blank. The pack watched, as if in slow motion, as their alpha's mate slid sideways from his broom, plummeting through the sky.

The last things Stiles' remembered hearing was the screaming of spells, the shout of his name, the call of the announcer, 'Slytherin has caught the snitch! Slytherin wins!' Searing, unbearable pain squeezed into every crevice of his being, smothering his consciousness into silence.

…..

"Bring him over here! Hurry! All of you, get out! Go! You'll all be fine!" Melissa shouted frantically as they dragged Stiles through the Medical Tent they'd help set up outside the stadium before the start of the game. She pulled a cot into the middle of the tent, throwing herself at her potions and herbs and everything she would need that could, and hopefully would, help Stiles. "Strip him! He's burning worse than his third year fever! We need to bring it down before it does permanent damage!"

"This is going to do permanent damage?" Derek asked numbly, his knees going weak as he stared down at his mate. There was a piece cracking in his being, an essential part that allowed him to function as a normal human being. If that piece shattered, he didn't know what he'd do, but he knew someone would have to kill him before he stopped.

Melissa snapped her head up at him from where she crouched over her supplies, tears trembling on the edges of her lashes. "Not if you help me bring down his fever," she snarled fiercely, shoving a bottle with liquid so white that it appeared blue. The bottle was freezing, nearly burning his hand. "Wrap that in a cloth and press it first to his forehead, then his throat, then the back of his neck and so on. Hurry," she instructed, voice even and pragmatic even if her eyes showed a mother shuddering at the impending death of her child.

"Stiles, Stiles," Derek whispered, doing as he was told, voice cracking with every utterance of his name. The pack was crowded around them, even Jackson despite still being disgruntled at his new pack status, each needing to have their hands on one of them. Allison and Kira stood on the outer edges, staying out of the way. Their eyes were wide and terrified.

"You're strong, Stiles, so strong. I know you can get through this," Lydia murmured over and over, carefully stripping Stiles of his emerald and silver uniform with the help of Danny and the twins.

Melissa, still pulling potions and herbs from her bag, setting them up on a table together, threw a few rags at her son. "Get those wet and get rid of all of the blood you can," she instructed, "I need to make sure that his skull is fine before starting anything major."

Scott looked around lost for a moment before Isaac filled a bowl with water, warming it and bringing it to Scott. He gave him a grateful smile, dipping the rags in. He began gently wiping away the blood that coated the back of Stiles' head, forehead and neck. Even with all of the spells working to slow his descent, he'd still hit the ground with enough force to make the entire stadium wince. "Stiles, you're my best friend, my family, my brother. I don't know what I would do if I lost you. You have to pull through this, not just for me, but for everyone. You're family needs you."

The Slytherin and Gryffindor teams milled around outside the tent flaps, peaking in curious, nosy faces. They'd broken away from the teachers herding the rest of the schools back into the castle.

Allison and Kira glared at them in disgust, reaching for their wands as one of them stuck a camera through the entrance.

Melissa's head snapped up as the flash went off, anger clouding her vision. "Someone get them out of here and keep them out of here! Confiscate that camera!"

Boyd, Erica, Cora, Jackson, Allison and Kira converged on the clustered teams, shouting and using their wands to create force fields and push them back. Erica and Jackson tore after the offending camera, snatching it from the boy's hands. Erica crushed the camera in her clawed fingers, raising her hackles at him when he threatened to curse her. "Just try. When Stiles is better, you'll wish you were dead. And if he can't do it, Lydia will," she spat.

The boy recoiled, paling at the thought of being on the receiving end of a pissed off Stiles' or Lydia's hex. He'd be taking himself to the Hospital Wing with his arms and legs in all the wrong spots, and that was if he was lucky. Scrambling away from them, he took off at a sprint towards the castle.

Rejoining the others, their eyes flashed in warning.

In the tent, Melissa stood over Stiles. "Alright, time to get started," she whispered, taking a deep breath and reaching for her first potion.

…..

Derek stood beside Stiles' bed in the Hospital Wing, fingers curled in Stiles' motionless ones, knuckles pressed white against his skin. Biting his lips, he withdrew his wand with trembling fingers, casting his patronus. His wolf burst forward, standing on his hind legs to press his paws to the edge of the bed. Jumping up to curl into Stiles' side, his wolf whined deep and continuous in the back of his throat.

"I know," Derek whispered, dropping his wand hand to cup under his wolf's muzzle. He struggled to hold onto his happy memory, one of Stiles grinning, laughing as his skimmed his nose along Derek's jaw. "I know."

On the bedside table, Stiles' wand glowed weakly, his wolf dragging herself from his wand tip. She struggled to lift her weight, collapsing across Stiles' body so her nose was mere centimeters from the nose of Derek's wolf. A whine whistled through her nose as weakly as her movements. Her light was faded, her image barely a wisp of what it usually was.

"Jesus," Derek choked, a sob lodging in his throat as he stared at their patronuses, so beaten and defeated.

Suddenly, Melissa was beside him, pulling him into a tight embrace, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she pressed his face into her shoulder. "It'll be alright, Derek, he'll be alright. He's strong, and he has all of you. He'd never leave you guys like this. He'll back before you know it, don't worry," she whispered, her voice as hoarse and scratchy as his own.

Despite her soothing words, the sob broke from his chest, followed closely by another, and another. He clutched at her, breathing in her scent, the comforting scent of pack, of a mother, not unlike his own mother's scent. He cried into her shoulder, soaking her robes, as she stroked her fingers through his hair, swallowing back tears of her own.

When he finally pulled out of her arms, a long while later, his ears were burning and his face was a mess. Laughing as only a mother can, she slid the pads of her thumbs beneath his eyes, wiping away his excess tears. She was pressing tissues into his hands in the next second, watching as he cleaned up is face. "He's going to be alright, Derek, you just have to believe in him. If it makes you feel any better, Scott cried in my arms for nearly two hours yesterday." She smiled and turned to go make them a cup of tea.

As his nose slowly cleared, a new scent prodded gently at his senses, a subtle change from Melissa's usual scent. It was a scent without name, without description, one he'd only smelt a few times in his life.

His patronus raised his head at him, eyebrows raised and eyes accusatory, as if to say, 'You know what that is. Don't look at me for the answer.'

With a sigh, his mind provided, 'She's pregnant, idiot.'

'Oh, she's pregnant,' he thought easily, nodding to himself, then again with more force, 'She's pregnant. Scott's mom is pregnant. Oh god.'

…..

Stiles was falling, his broom ripped from beneath him, the air pushing against his back. He flailed his arms, plummeting through the sky. His scream was ripped from his throat and thrown into the great beyond, tore away from him with such force that his lungs struggled to suck in any air.

Voices whispered around him, slipping like water over his ears, encouraging strength, perseverance, survival. Love slid over his aching brain, soothing the frying nerves and burning synapses. Anger poked at him with pitch forks, shooting electricity through his unresponsive muscles. Sorrow had his heart reaching out, pounding harder, blood singing out to comfort them, to soothe those in his pack, and still he fell.

Desperation had his mind racing, concocting plans that would never work or would only get him into more trouble than he was already. Just as he was reaching to employ Plan A, he slammed into the familiar, scarred hardwood of the Hale house.

Wheezing, he turned over, clutching at his chest. As he pushed himself up, he came face to face with a younger version of his mother, a mother before he'd been born. She was healthy and grinning, glowing with life. She leaned over a book, scratching messy notes onto a loose sheet of paper, frowning as she twirled her hand through the air in an attempt to practice what she was reading. It wasn't any kind of magic that Stiles had ever seen, but more of the kind that Deaton would perform as an Emissary.

He scrambled away from her, chest heaving.

An equally young Talia by the looks of her stepped into the room, grinning. She sprawled out beside Claudia, tucking her fingers into the fold of Claudia's knee. "You're really taking this training seriously aren't you? It's amazing to see you so focused on something."

A smile as wide and bright as the sun split across her face. "Yeah, of course," she said, slapping her hand unnecessarily hard over Talia's stomach, making the other woman gasp in surprise, "I knew I was always different, I just didn't know how. It's fascinating. Great-great-grandmother told me that we have a rare gift that shouldn't be wasted. She said I could help people with it, and that's exactly what I'm planning on doing. Did you know we can act as Emissaries? That's why we train with them so often? But they don't have the raw energy or type of magic we do? They can only advice and assist, but we can do that and keep the peace, and so much more."

"Tell me more," Talia murmured, flipping over to rest her chin on Claudia's thigh. The book pressed open on the floor was gibberish to her, so she turned her eyes up to Claudia's grin.

"We really good at Divination, but I can't find a reason for that. I think it has to do with how our magic is tied to the moon. When it comes to telling the future though, it's limited to those we consider pack, or the pack we're tied to. So, even though I am what I am and I'm not a werewolf, there's obviously groups of people we're more attracted to than others. That would be considered our pack if we didn't already have one. And if there is a person apart of a pack in that group, we can see major happenings with that pack," she explained, reading off a piece of paper she'd slipped from beneath the pile. "We're kind of like an alpha's mate, even if the alpha already has one, and to be useful, the alpha has to have chemistry with us, even if it's just friendship. If an alpha starts to distrust us, then we won't be useful anymore. If the alpha outright distrusts us, the magic connecting us to the pack will sever. It's painful and can lead to our death in extreme circumstances, but appears to be even more rare than my boyfriend being serious."

Talia laughed delightedly, pressing her nose into Claudia's stomach. "Well, that explains why you started smelling even better the more we got to be friends."

"Actually," Claudia said in her professorial voice, "That's just a marker of our magic. Though, that's not untrue either. Even to someone who has no chemistry with one of us, our magic will smell quite nice, though it sours if hatred blooms between the pair, though that has to be mutual hatred. The scent gets stronger and more distinct as puberty hits and our magic develops and we learn to use it."

Shrugging, Talia mumbled, "Better for the rest of us who have to smell you."

"That's true," Claudia laughed, running her fingers through Talia's hair almost lovingly.

Slowly, with eyes the same liquid amber that Stiles had, she looked up at him. He stared back in surprise and fear, his vision beginning to blacken. With command and magic behind her words, she whispered, "You have a pack to look after. Wake up."