Chapter Eight: Six Feet Under

Stiles POV: He can't take it. The waiting is driving him insane. His body is numb from sitting in the same seat for who knows how long. He'd had time to think and to plan, but even his best idea for escape sounded like a death sentence. He searched the halls. He searched the doors. He searched the corridors, back ways, and floors. Standing, he drifts from wall to wall, shadowing himself behind the stone pillars and peering into the mouth of the arch that leads down another dark hall. He'd never seen that one before, it wasn't there yesterday.

His feet patter silently against the cement ground, occasionally looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching him. Peter stayed behind in the train station lounge, defeated and falling into the same mindless oblivion of those who have accepted being forgotten. He stumbles through the dome-like arch, disabled by the shallow darkness that floods his eyes until he's immersed in a vacuumed void. He can't rely on his sight so he trips over his feet, his shaking fingers blindly reaching out against the walls as he continues to stagger to an unknown destination. A slip of light peeks out at the end of the hall, starting as a flicker before blinding him with it's iridescence.

He runs towards the tiny glimmer of salvation.

The closer he gets, the farther it seems to be. His legs feel like jelly and his ragged breathing turns into a fitful cough. His conscious is moving, but it feels as though his body isn't. He halts his steps and bends over his knees, trying to catch his breath. He has to be almost there, right?

He starts running again. Faster. Quicker.

He finally reaches the end and his eyes struggle to adjust to the dramatic shift from dark to light.

"I think I found it. I'm going home." He thinks to himself, taking a hesitant step forward. And then two. And then three, morphing into a full blown sprint.

He can taste the salt in the air from the beach near Beacon Hills. He's standing on a cliff watching the sky fade from soft blue to a deep indigo with splashes of grey. The waves are boisterous and angry, coming together and apart like estranged lovers. The wind is bone-chilling and the trees whistle as they sway in the eye of the storm. He turns his head and he sees a head of dark hair flowing down sun-kissed skin. He squints, making out the willowy figure of a girl and instantly recognizes those familiar, caramel eyes.

"Malia..." He sighs in relief, rushing over to her side as she stands facing the water. She's staring down the nose of the cliff with glassy eyes and a frown marring her pretty face.

He tries to rouse her. He goes to grasp her shoulder but his hand goes straight through her body like a phantom touch. She seems unaffected by him being there. She doesn't make a sound. She doesn't even seem like she sees him.

"Malia, I'm back! Aren't you going to say anything?" He screams over the roar of the tide, trying once again to touch her and pull her away from the edge once he notices how close she is to the end. One powerful gust of wind and she'd go tumbling over.

He doesn't like the look on her face. It resembles the way she appeared when she'd found out that he'd lied to her about who her real family was. She's crumbled and broken, the polar opposite of the blazing fire of the woman that he knew she was. A lone tear leaks from the corner of her eye and she wipes it away furiously with the sleeve of her hoodie. His hoodie.

He tries again to make her see him. He's getting angrier by the second and his anxiety spikes.

"Why can't you hear me?" He shouts, his hands grasping air as he falls to her feet. Why did you forget me?" His voice cracks at the end and his throat is sore. Finally, it hits him.

"This isn't real, is it?"

"Isn't it, though?"A disembodied voice echoes through the his mind. It causes the image to ripple and blur and Stiles can't see Malia anymore. "Technically it's not real. You aren't physically here, considering it's a memory. It's just not yours." The voice snickers.

He's back in the tunnels.

"Where did she go? What did you do to her? Bring her back, she needs my help!"

"No Stiles, she doesn't." The voice cautions.

"She's going to jump! I have to stop her, please! She can't die, I'll go out of my freaking mind... I-I-I- need her. This is the only scrap of my old life that I still have and it's the one thing keeping me from letting it all go." He gasps, falling to the ground in a puddle of agony. "I can't stay here. Please help me."

"If you insist, but don't say I didn't warn you." The voice admonishes.

Stiles feels his head throb and his vision swims. Then it all comes into focus. He's back.

Malia stands stock still, only this time the tip of her combat boots had moved a little closer to the edge as they scrape the deteriorating peak.

"I could just fall." She says suddenly, peering over the edge with the distance staring her in the face.

"Don't even think about it." Stiles growls angrily, stomping over to her side. Just because she couldn't see or hear him doesn't mean that he couldn't yell and scream and be mad at her. The fact that she could even think that something like this would ever be okay leaves him hot.

It's selfish! Doesn't she know how many people would miss her? Knowing that something brought her to this moment makes him burn in the worst way possible. He looks out at the water and thinks how the sky and water would actually be a beautiful combination in it's devastation, seeing the blue-black and greys slow dancing together around them. He knows it's quite morbid, but he had grown jaded throughout the years witnessing all the things he and his friends had.

If only he was here under different circumstances.

She grimaces. "Why couldn't you have loved me the way I always wanted to be loved, huh?" She asks to empty space, letting the question hang in the air. For a moment, Stiles thinks she's talking about him.

"I didn't need you to be my mom, I already had one of those. But I did need you to at least be a decent human being. I wanted you to feel something for me, just a piece of regret... and now you're gone. And I'm left feeling like I'm falling into quick sand." She confesses, the deep brown of her eyes shining with tears. "I don't have a family anymore. I don't have Stiles anymore. I don't have anyone, and you took that from me!" She shouts into the wind and her body trembles as the unwanted feelings overtake her. She sways slightly, catching herself when she stumbles over a rock and almost falls. She chuckles somberly. "You're dead and you still get the last laugh."

Stiles advances on her. "Malia, that's not true. You didn't lose me, I'm still here. I'm right here. I would never leave you." He whispers even though he knows she can't hear him. He knows this is a moment that he never got to witness, but he blames himself for it all the same. Because he should have been here. He'd been too wrapped up in Lydia, him and Scott's drama, and his own self-loathing to spare her a thought.

Malia is independent and the toughest girl he knows. She never needed him to fight her demons. But he had let her believe that she did, because he had loved how she relied on him. He loved the look of wonder that would wash over her in even the most trivial moments like when he'd help her with her homework or teach her how to drive. She had always been fully there in every second of their relationship, even when she knew he wasn't.

But he still loved being loved by her.

"Dad, I'm sorry I couldn't be strong for you. I know I'm taking the easy way out and your going to grieve for another daughter who isn't worth it. Stiles, I'm sorry I failed you and that I couldn't make you forget about Lydia, you have no idea how many times I wished I could. Lydia, I'm sorry that you're about to lose another best friend. I'm being selfish, I know it. But you'll still feel me, closer than anyone else. But it will be in death. "Scott... Scott I'm so sorry that you wasted your time on me, but I want to thank you for turning me human. I got to experience what it's like to be a teenager and a friend. I also learned what it's like to be in love and how much it hurts to lose it."

Stiles feels the tears prickling his eyes and his hand ghosts past her cheek, imagining that he was actually touching her. He knew he couldn't change anything. The worst part is that he doesn't know if this memory is recent or not. He has no way of knowing."Malia, listen to me, okay please! You can't do this. Please, Malia, please. I know this is my fault. God dammit, this is all my fault. I did this to you. I should have tried harder to help you find the Desert Wolf. I should have visited you at Deaton's clinic. All I had to do was pay attention!" Stiles screams, racing over to her and laying his cheek on top of her head. "Please Mal, don't leave me." He whispers brokenly, shaken from his reverie when he hears a phone ring.

It's Malia's. She picks up the phone and holds it to her ear, choking down her tears so that whoever it is wouldn't know what she had been planning to do.

"Scott, hey... Yeah no, I'm fine. Just... working on that pre-cal assignment due tomorrow." The lie comes easily through her teeth as her voice stays steady and smooth.

Stiles can hear Scott faintly through the other end of the phone.

"That's funny because I'm at your house with Braedan and your dad says he hasn't seen you all day." The deeper voice admonishes.

"Okay, you caught me. I just needed some time to think, you know after everything with the Desert Wolf and Stiles." She pauses to collect her thoughts. The more she lets the thoughts consume her, the angrier she gets. Her jaw clenches and a snarl escapes her lips. "He didn't even check on me when Theo shot me. We broke up and he just doesn't care about me anymore. He's been too worried about Lydia" She grits out, biting her tongue and unintentionally letting the bitterness seep out. "Scott, I know my mom was a killer and she never wanted anything to do with me. But... does it make me weak that I'm sad about her being gone? I don't miss her, not in the slightest. But I miss the possibilities of what meeting her could of been like. I used to fantasize about what she looked like, how her hair smelled, or if she'd be proud of who I grew up to be. I guess I miss the bliss that came with being ignorant. I had all these expectations and she crushed every single one."

"It doesn't make you weak, it makes you human." Scott reminds her thoughtfully, carving a small smile out of the frown that had played on her lips.

"I keep thinking that maybe Stiles is going to call. I thought for sure he would after he watched me get shot multiple times. But... Radio silence." The frown returns. And Stiles feels like the world's biggest jackass.

"I was worried about you... I just didn't know how to show it. Things were weird, I didn't know how to talk to you." Stiles mumbles, knowing that it was an excuse. He continues listening in on her and Scott's conversation.

Scott comforts her. "Well I care about you. A lot. I'm so proud of you, 'Lia. You didn't let her turn you into a monster."

Stiles flinches. Why did he always have to say the right thing?

"No one's ever told me that they're proud of me. I didn't realize how much I needed to hear it until now, so thank you. For being you. And caring. And...I care about you, too. A lot." The words tumble out of her mouth without her even thinking about it and for some reason it makes her smile widen.

Stiles notices this and he finds himself frowning. Had Scott always been perceptive to Malia or was he just that terrible of a boyfriend that he hadn't been?

"Well get used to it because you're a part of this pack and nothing will ever change that. You're amazing and strong, probably way stronger than I could ever be. It's kind of intimidating." Scott chuckles through the phone. "This will all blow over eventually. The guilt and the heart ache may never go away, but I promise things will get easier. You have more humanity in your finger than your mother had in her whole body. Her blood may run through your veins, but you are not her. And I know things with Stiles are rocky, but I'm here for you, 'Lia. You can count on me to love you no matter what happens between you guys. You're always welcome to come by if you ever need to talk."

"Thanks Scott. I just need time."

Stiles continues to watch the scene unfold before him in a dream-like trance, unable to touch or manipulate the situation. He feels his heart constrict painfully as if someone had squished it between their hands.

"Scott saved her..." He murmurs, lost in the sight of Malia's hair blowing in the wind as she steps away from the edge and treks down the cliff. She walks right past him like he's a fly on the wall and he realizes all that he really had lost. Her boots crunch against the twigs and rocks until she disappears from sight, leaving Stiles standing alone.

"Bye Malia."

Suddenly he's sucked into a vortex of light and dumped back to the end of the hallway.

What just happened? How was I able to see her?

Peter looms by one of the pillars. "It's part of the Wild Hunt. You ride the lightening for eternity and eventually you lose your mind over and over again to the point that the ghost riders curse you with the ability to look back on pieces of your life that you missed out on. It makes everything even more unbearable. You get to witness all the mistakes you made and the memories that you can't fix. You spend all your days deranged and thirsting for a fleeting moment in time that you'll never get back. There is no way out, Stiles. We are never getting out of here." He says with a tone of finality.

"I refuse to accept that. I can't let myself give up hope that there's a way out of here." The Stilinski boy proclaims, tearing at his hair with his fingers. "Help me, Peter."

"I already told you-"

"I know what you said. But what about Malia, huh? I know you care about her more than you let on. I know you want to get out of here for her, to protect her. And I'm okay with that. I want to get back to her and my dad, Scott, and Lydia. But I can't do it alone." He utters, pleading with his sworn enemy to join forces with him and find a way out of there.

Peter stands there and doesn't say anything, but Stiles can see his will crumbling. He knows that he wants nothing more than to make things right with his daughter.

He gives in. "If we're doing this, we're doing it my way, no exceptions." Peter concedes, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of his hand.

"Yeah! Sure! Whatever you want." Stiles babbles out excitedly, finally feeling a semblance of hope since he'd been taken.

Author's Note: Okay wow, so Stiles just witnessed the moment that Malia told Lydia about in chapter six. What did you guys think? It seems like Stiles is experiencing some major guilt... and possibly picking up on the scalia vibes? And I just want to be clear that this is a Scalia story. Yes I throw in some stalia because I'm trash for them and their my otp. It didn't feel like they got the closure they deserved in the show or that their feelings about the break up were touched upon in the way they should have been. But don't worry, the next chapter will be SCALIA HEAVY and I'm so excited to write it!