Oh my gosh guys, I love you. I received one of the funniest, my blush-inducing review today, which inspired my update. Also, I wanted thank Sirnonenath – all your reviews are always so thoughtful and they make me smile.

Anyways, this is going to be a split POV. You'll know who's thinking/what, so don't worry. But I think at this point, you need other people to fully round out the story. Let's get started!

Also, I'm gonna be stealing some stuff from the old promos! So best watch out! *cape flip*

Chapter 6

What Always Comes, But Never Arrives?

"This… just got infinitely worse."

Scott was too speechless to say anything against Isaac. He was still trying to process the fact that his father was here, let alone understand what just happened. "Did Stiles just get arrested by my Dad?" Scott chokes, staring where his best friend once was.

Isaac gapes. "Dude, Scott, get your shit together. I don't think that you having a mental breakdown is going to help anyone right now."

"My dad just arrested Stiles."

"Scott, seriously. Get it together."

"My Dad. Arrested Stiles. While he was about to have a panic attack."

Then Scott's on the floor.

Scott rubs his jaw, struggling to get back to his feet. "What was that for?" Scott's jaw tingles from where Isaac struck him – there had to be a little bit of werewolf in that swing.

"You were panicking and I know this is an excellent time to panic, but can you not?" Isaac snaps, holding out a hand to help Scott to his feet. "Do you not see that this is bad? Your mom's right – we need a plan. Fate is kicking our asses right now."

"I know—" Scott trails off when he feels his pocket vibrate. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Scott groans. "This is the absolute last thing we need."

Isaac peeks over. His eyes darken. "Don't answer it. Whatever it is, it's only gonna make our lives ten million times worse."

Scott shakes his head. "I tried calling him so many times. I need to answer it."

"Don't do it. Stiles just got hauled off by your father because he thought he was high on drugs. Perspective, Scott. Perspective." Isaac shouts.

Scott stares at his phone. "I got to answer it."

"Remember this moment," Isaac says. "Remember this moment as the time where I told you that this was a bad idea and you were going to regret it. Remember this moment because as soon as you say 'that was a bad choice,' I'm gonna say 'I told you so, you shithead.' Just so we're on the same page."

"Shut up, Isaac," Scott mumbles. With trembling hands, Scott answers the phone, "Hello?"

"I'm gonna kill him."

"Huh?" Scott asks. "Derek, what are you talking about?"

"I'm gonna kill him. I don't care that you guys are in school – bring Stiles to my house so I can beat the shit out of him."

Scott shakes his head, putting his phone on speaker so Isaac can listen in. "What are you talking about? Why do you want to beat the shit out of Stiles?"

Isaac rolled his eyes. "Because he's Derek and has a tendency to overreact."

"Don't make me put you on my list, Lahey. But returning to our original topic, I need you to put your friend on the phone so he can explain to me why the hell he used my house as his own personal pin board."

Scott gives Isaac a confused look, who merely shrugs in return. "Personal pin board? What do you mean?"

"I mean, why the hell is there crap all over the living room of my house? All listed in 'Real', 'Not Real', and 'Not Sure' categories. Tell him to use his own damn house – half of these don't even make sense! They're written in some gibberish language! Actually, put Stiles on the phone so I can yell at him my damn self."

Scott finds it hard to reply. "Stiles isn't here."

"Like hell he isn't there. The two of you are never apart. I bet he's right next to you, waving his hands, forcing you to say he's not there."

Isaac sighs. "Scott's not lying, Derek. He's really not here."

The line goes silent. It's like Derek finally sees past the rage in his mind and hears the boys for the first time. "…what happened?"

Isaac waits a few moments for Scott to answer, but when he doesn't, he answers for him. "Scott's dad just arrested him."

Derek doesn't respond. As if he isn't content with the answer just given.

Isaac presses further, watching Scott's face crumble. This was the moment. The moment that Isaac pressed, but now realized he didn't want to see. It's sunk in. Scott's eyes water and he looks to the ground. His father arrested his best friend. During a panic attack. This is where there life is.

"Stiles is…" Isaac begins, not quite sure how to phrase it so it'll be clear to Derek, but won't set Scott off. "Stiles did something and now things are a little… messy. And it doesn't help that Scott's dad just arrested him, thinking he's on drugs."

"Is he?"

"Besides his medication, I'd say no. He has other things that are occupying his time." Isaac says, keeping a weary eye on Scott, who's now leaning against the locker. "Can you tell us what some of the things say? The ones that make sense, anyways?"

Derek grumbles, but it's not really menacing. The air of frustration is evaporated. Isaac puts a hand on Scott's shoulder, but it's like he doesn't even register it. "Well, under the 'Real' section, there's one that says you saved him from… shooting himself?!"

"Yeah, that's unfortunately real."

"Why would he do that?"

Isaac is at a loss. He doesn't know how to balance Scott and Derek at the same time, but breathes easy when he sees two girls approaching them. Lydia and Allison walk up, Allison's eyes full of worry when she see's Scott's broken form. "What's going on?"

"Why are you guys here?"

Lydia shrugs. "You two didn't show up for first period, so we figured something was wrong. I mean, Stiles was having a panic attack."

As soon as the words left her mouth, her eyes widened. "Wait… where is he?" She asks, her voice a little raspy, as if she already knows something's happened. "Where's Stiles?"

Isaac clenches his fist. This is too much for one wolf to deal with.

"Stiles got arrested, Lydia." Derek calls out.

Allison stops comforting Scott. Lydia stares at the phone. "Wha… no," she says, looking from Isaac to Scott. She gives a humorless laugh. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would Stiles be arrested?"

The look Scott gives her could break hearts in an instant. Her lower lip trembles. "This is a really elaborate prank if you got Derek involved. But I'm going to go to the nurses office and I'm going to find Stiles. And he's going to laugh at me – he's going to make fun that I even entertained the thought that, while during a panic attack, he was somehow magically arrested for God knows what, and—"

"Lydia." Scott's voice is raspy. He clutches Allison's hand. "Please,"

Lydia draws silent.

Nobody says anything for a while.

"…so, I'm still here. I think you guys should come see everything. Call Stiles' dad on the way here, make sure he knows what's going on. If my living room teaches me anything, it's that Stiles may not even believe what's happening to him is real."

Scott scowls. "Is that supposed to make us feel better?"

"No, it's supposed to make you get here faster. It's supposed to make you terrified."

XXX

"Wow," Scott breathes, overwhelmed by the sight of Derek Hale's living room. "This is a little much."

Derek's in the corner of the room with his arms crossed. "Imagine coming home to this."

Papers are pinned all over the walls, as well as in piles on the floor. Stiles hasty scrawl is across all of them, but some of them aren't even words – just random jumbles of letters that not even Lydia can figure out. "He is actually losing his shit," Isaac says to himself, earning a scowl from Scott. "I'm only stating the obvious! I mean look at this!" Isaac cries, shaking one of the notes in his face. "This isn't a language, this is gibberish!"

Allison approaches the wall, peering at a few of the 'Not Real' entries. "Some of these are terrifying." She says softly, her eyes flitting across a few of the notes. "This one in the hospital? People forcing him to go into his mother's old room? No thank you."

Scott rushes over, his eyes wide. "Oh God, no wonder he's losing his damn mind." Scott thumbs through some more. "Why didn't he just tell us what was going on?" He cries out exasperatedly.

"He did." Derek says, stepping over to the 'Not Sure' wall. "Three times, to be exact. I'd give up too after a while." Derek rips a few more off the wall. "Hey, I'm in this one." Derek lifts his eyebrow. "Stiles subconscious must think I'm a dick."

"You are." Isaac states.

Scott shakes his head. "How is this supposed to help us, again? Besides making me feel completely useless?"

Lydia's on the floor, surrounded by papers. "There's gotta be a trend. There's always something there. A red string, if you will. Something that ties everything together." She flips through a few more. "There's got to be something here. We just have to think like Stiles."

Everyone looks at each other.

Isaac's the first to snort. "So we have to pretend we're crazy."

Lydia glares at him. "No, we have to think like Stiles before the darkness. Because he would be able to figure this out. Sure, I'm the genius here, but Stiles thinks differently. He sees patterns that we don't. He's just different."

Derek chuckles. "No one's arguing that."

"—but there has to be something here. He laid it out like this for a reason. He was trying to see a pattern." Lydia moves over to the coffee table. "He was trying to figure it out, but what is 'it?' What is he seeing that we're not?"

"6:46." Isaac states.

Every looks at him. "Huh?"

Isaac rolls his eyes. "You guys are always telling me to be more helpful and so I'm trying. 6:46 PM. It's all over the coffee table."

Scott rushes over. Sure enough, notes with the time 6:46 PM are scattered all over the coffee table. He runs his fingers over Stiles' scratchy handwriting. "Panic attack - on the 3rd.. Panic attack – on the 5th. Panic attack – on the 7th… all at 6:46 PM." Scott could go on, but he doesn't have the heart to. "He started tracking them. He knew they were coming."

That wasn't the part that scared him. What scared him is, as the dates progressed, there was one very terrifying addition to the pages.

Blood.

Fingerprints and droplets of blood tainted the pages the further they went on. "They're getting more violent." Scott states, his mouth dry.

"But what is the significance?" Lydia asks. Shoving the papers to the side. "What is so important about 6:46 PM? What happened at that time?"

Everyone looks to Scott, but all he can do is shake his head. "I-I don't know." His eyes fill with tears. "I-I'm so sorry, I just don't know."

Allison rushes over and puts her hands on his shoulders, giving them a tight squeeze. "It's fine, we'll just have to figure it out. We need to figure out the significance to 6:46 PM and why it's trigger the darkness so regularly. We'll just figure it out."

"We should probably figure it out sooner rather than later." Isaac says, check his watch. "Because it's officially four o'clock. We have less than three hours to figure this out, find Stiles, and get him un-arrested."

XXX

Everything is white.

Stiles stumbles around, trying to regain control of his body, but he can barely stay on his feet. He looks at his hands and blinks a few times. That can't be right. His hands aren't the right color. They're… red.

He's having a hard time catching his breath.

"This isn't you,"

Stiles hears Scott's voice, but it's distant. Easy to push aside.

Why are his hands red?

…did he kill someone?

When he looks at his reflection, his breath catches. He knew this would happen. For some reason, he always knew.

This is me.

Stiles is covered in blood. The world is darkening. Everything is making him drown. It's a shame, he always feared drowning. Drowning without water is even worse.

He would turn into the monster he was capable of being.

"No!" Stiles screams and he tries to move his arms forward, but they won't move. They can't.

He blinks and the white room is gone, but he can't be certain of where he is. Something is preventing him from moving. He pulls, but his wrists scream with pain, blood seeping down them. What is going on?

Stiles screams. He screams until there isn't any air left. He pulls his arms to break free until he can't feel his wrists.

He breathes until he can't.

XXX

"I need you to repeat that slower and I need you to calm down."

Ms. McCall stares at her son and his 'pack,' all of them looking as though they need to be in stretchers themselves. Scott looks at her imploringly. "Mom, Dad arrested Stiles this morning because he thought that he was on drugs because he couldn't focus on anything, but it was really because he was wigging out due to the darkness. And we don't know what's going to happen, but something's going to happen at 6:46 PM, but we don't know why that time."

Ms. McCall takes a moment to control her anger. "Have you told the Sherriff?"

All the kids look at each other. Scott rubs the back of his head. "We figured the station would tell him. That way they can hold him back when he decides he's going to kill Dad."

"Can't say that I blame him at this point," Ms. McCall sighs, rubbing her face. "Where is Stiles now?"

"That's the thing," Scott says. "We don't know. We've been at Derek's house all day – a place that Stiles has used as his own personal clue board, trying to figure out what all of this means."

"But Scott," Ms. McCall looks at her watch. "It's almost seven. Whatever you think is going to happen, didn't."

Scott rubs the back of his head. "I guess you're right. It's just – do you know why the time 6:46 PM is such a big deal to him? Why he would be having panic attacks consistently at that time? I've been trying to figure out why that time is so important, but I just can't."

Ms. McCall shrugs. "I'm sorry sweetie, but I don't. All I can think of is that there's something that happened in his life – something terrible – at that time. Something that he still keeps with him…" Ms. McCall's eyes go wide. "…today. Oh my God, I think I know what—"

The doors of the hospital swing open and people start yelling. Ms. McCall pushes past Scott, her hand going to her mouth when she sees the sight before her.

The paramedic is rambling off information, but she's not listening.

"Seventeen-year-old white male, stopped breathing due to a panic attack while under surveillance at the police station. Started compressions on sight, restarted his heart after 56 seconds. Still isn't breathing on his own."

Ms. McCall can't stop staring at his wrists.

The stretcher they're wheeling him on is soaked with blood by his wrists, handcuffs digging into his skin. Ms. McCall is shocked back into reality. "Take those off him," she demands, pointing at the handcuffs attached to the side of the gurney. "Take them off right now."

The paramedic looks uncomfortable. "But he's a—"

"Patricia," Ms. McCall states slowly. "You know this boy. He isn't 'seventeen-year-old white male,' he's Stiles Stilinski, the sheriff's son. And right now he's not even breathing on his own, let alone fighting to break out of jail. They are hurting him. You get someone to take them off right this instant."

The paramedic nods and motions for one of the cops to come over. As they unlock the handcuffs, the cop flinches when he grabs them. Ms. McCall gives him a pitiful look. Ken – he's known Stiles since he was born. "He was pulling on them, Melissa." Ken says. "Just screaming. Just screaming and screaming. We couldn't calm him down. He was shouting 'this isn't you' over and over again until… he just wasn't. We tried to get him to stop pulling against the handcuffs but, there was nothing we could do."

"I know," she breathes, putting a hand on his arm. "I know."

"The Sheriff's on his way."

Ms. McCall shuts her eyes. "This is going to get bad."

"It already has."

She looks up and sees her ex-husband walk through the door, his usual calm demeanor a little shaken. A low growl emits from Scott's mouth and Ms. McCall puts a hand on his chest. "Honey, you need to calm down. This is already going to be intense as it is without you adding to it."

She takes a calming breath. Someone has to remain calm. Someone has to keep a clear head. Because her son and the sheriff are definitely not those people and there is a teenage boy being hooked up to a monitor.

Someone has to be the anchor.

Agent McCall opens his mouth when he approaches her, but she just puts her hand up. "No one wants to hear it."

Agent McCall scowls. "This just proves I'm right, that kid is on something."

Ms. McCall snaps, "Yeah, it's called Adderall."

Agent McCall shakes his head. "No, his body is going into shock. It's detoxing from something."

"The only detoxing that needs to happen is Beacon Hills of you." She snaps, but her frustration is evaporated with the hospital doors swing open again. "Oh no," she breathes when she sees the person stomping down the hallway.

Before she can say anything, the person approaches Agent McCall, cocks his arm back, and swings. Then he's on the ground. Agent McCall rubs his jaw as he scrambles to his feet. "You just assaulted a federal agent."

Sheriff Stilinski waves a finger in his face. Stepping in between the two, Ms. McCall puts her hand on the sheriff's chest. He flinches, the tension in his shoulders from preparing to swing again filtering out a little. "You can mess with me. You can try and take my job away, you can question my integrity. You can try and turn my own force against me. But, you have crossed a line."

Sheriff Stilinski draws closer, his eyes full of hate. "If you ever go near my son again, if you ever do anything that could even be considered with malicious intent, you'll have a bullet between the eyes."

A/N: So a little more intense… :D I really loved the episode last night and I hope you guys like this chapter. It looks like I *may* get my Stiles/Isaac friend wish?!

If you have some time, please leave me a review! Oh, how I love them.