When Stiles comes too, it's with a sense of vertigo so extreme that the brunet thinks he's going to throw up right then and there. Stiles sits up and grabs the bucket that he knows is there beside his little cot. The brunet heaves until there's nothing left to heave. When he's done, his head feels like it's going to explode into a million tiny pieces and yet at the same time it feels like every piece of him is slamming together, trying to mend itself.
Suddenly, he's getting images of his mother sitting with him in her lap at the beach, and he knows they did that. The only problem is that they never went to the beach. Images of his childhood that have never happened are flashing before his minds eye as if they have an he's so confused and in so much pain he can't make any sense of it.
"Stiles, are you okay?" There's a hand on his shoulder and the pain in his head ebbs away as if Scott was taking from him.
Stiles jerks straight up, almost knocking the blonde woman comforting him over, "Scott!" He quickly looks around the room, recognizing it as Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital.
"Shh, shh, it was just a dream, little prince."
Stiles looks up and feels like he's been sucker punched. He'd always had a hard time remembering what his mother looked like outside of picture but there she was, sitting next to him and trying to comfort him.
"I'm sure Melissa will bring Scott. Her shift starts in twenty minutes."
Stiles just stares for a few minutes before leaning forward and wrapping his arms around her neck. He thinks he's dreaming, or hallucinating, and he doesn't want to let this go. He has so few dreams about his mother that are peaceful.
"Are you feeling better?" She asks, rubbing his back.
Stiles nods, letting go when his mother pulls away.
"I kind of have to pee, though." He stands up, shocked to find he only reaches her chest.
Stiles helps his mother to her hospital bed, the one she wasn't supposed to get out of, before leaving to use the restroom. Somehow, he knows this section of the hospital even though his mother was two floor up when she was here.
The brunet quickly relieves himself before making his way back towards his mothers' room. His light, however, seems to have different ideas. It tells him to make his way down the hallway – in the opposite direction of Claudia's room – and isn't shocked to find an intersection with a nurse's desk.
He is shocked to see Derek Hale slouching in a waiting chair with a nervous look on his face. Stiles thinks to himself that he's ever seen Derek so young – so open and vulnerable. Stiles makes his way forward and takes the seat next to the werewolf.
'Did I just go back in time?' He asks himself.
"Hey." Derek looks at him like he's something new; like no one ever comes to talk to him out of the blue.
"Hi."
"Should you be here alone?"
"My mom's in the room just down the hall and I'm waiting for my friend." Stiles swings his feet – which aren't even touching the floor, dear lord he is so small again – back and forth to no particular beat.
"Why are you here?"
"My sister's getting her tonsils removed and I just have a bad feeling. It's silly."
"It's not silly. Anesthesiology-" Stiles has a hard time getting that one out, "is tricky. Some people react badly to it."
"That doesn't help me." Derek glares at him.
Stiles thinks that a record for pissing Derek off, even for him.
"At least it's just tonsils getting removed. At least she's not doing Chemo." Stiles thinks about his mom and how she's going to die soon.
"I'm sorry to hear that." He barely catches Derek whisper that.
"I wish your sister all the luck in the world." Stiles hops off his chair.
"I hope your mom makes it, too, kid." Derek leans forward – out of his slouch – and tussles Stiles' shaggy hair.
"Thanks." Stiles can't help it; he leans forward and hugs Derek.
He still smells like the woods and spring.
Before anything else happens, Stiles makes his way back to his mothers' room. When he opens the door, he sees Melissa checking up on his mom and Scott bouncing over to him.
"Stiles! Stiles! You'll never guess what happened at school today! Lydia asked where you were!"
"Oh. Okay." Stiles doesn't really find that information interesting, and he can't understand why Scott is this hyperactive.
Oh god was he like that normally? Was his mother going to notice that he wasn't acting like himself?
"What's wrong, Stiles?"
"I had a bad dream, it's nothing personal, Scott."
And he listens to Scott go on and on as they do their homework – Scott is amazed as Stiles zips through the ridiculously easy questions the seventh grade offers – and eventually Scott tires himself out. Stiles looks at his mother and finds that she, too, is unconscious.
Stiles curls up on his cot and closes his eyes for a bit, trying to figure out what's happened to him.
He remembers the spell Derek had him perform. He remembers watching Derek-. He remembers going to chuck-e-cheeses for his seventh birthday, even though he knows for his seventh birthday he and Scott went ice skating. He remembers the creature that ripped Scott open – he curls a bit tighter around his best friend – and murdered all of his other friends.
Out of nowhere, he remembers Derek – Sourwolf – telling him about how Talia had a Fay companion to help delegate with other supernatural people. He remembers his mother telling him in a dream that she'd accidently tethered herself to a friend whom she'd lost contact with years ago.
Stiles opens his eyes to find that three hours have passed.
The brunet slips Scott's arm off of him and quietly makes his way out of the room. He quickly pads his way up to the nurse's desk and smiles up at Melissa.
His mind provides images of her lying on the floor with her limbs broken at odd angles and her organs scattered around her.
"I wanna make a call."
"Is it to your father?"
"Mm." He lies effortlessly.
Melissa takes him to the nurses break room and hands him the hospital phone. Stiles thinks for a minute before dialing the operator.
"I'd like to place a call to the Hale household, please." He tells the operator when asked.
After a few questions, a woman answers the phone sounding concerned.
"Who is this?"
"You don't know me, but I know about you Mrs. Hale. If you care about her at all, you'll come to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital Room 23C." He hangs up and only realizes belatedly that his message could be construed as a veiled threat and oh god he just threatened an Alpha on a hunch.
After mentally preparing himself, Stiles goes back to his mothers' room to find Scott and Claudia still asleep. Stiles takes his spot on the cot, closing his eyes and quickly falls asleep.
He wakes up to the sound of the room's door opening. He peaks up to see his father sticking his head in and Stiles thinks that he's never seen his father so happy and young.
"She's asleep, but you can come in. Melissa told me she's been sleeping for a few hours." His father tells someone behind him, opening the door wide.
Behind his father is a woman he's never actually met, but looks strikingly like Derek. His father makes his way over to Claudia's bedside, gently shaking her awake. Talia looks at him and Scott with curiosity before walking around his mothers' bed to stand on the other side.
His mother wakes up slowly – a stark contrast to before she became ill – and smiles when she sees John smiling down at her.
"Hey, love."
"Hi, John. Is it four o'clock already?"
"No, it's only midnight. I took the night off early to come see you. I'm glad. There's a woman here who says she's an old friend of your." John looks at Talia with a bit of uncertainty.
His mother looks over to the darker haired woman a bit confused before shock takes over her face.
"Talia?"
"Hello, Claudia." Talia smiles and Stiles knows where Cora got her smile from.
"What – what are you doing here?" His mother sits up in her bed, worry covering her expression.
"Calm down, nothing's wrong, per se. I got an anonymous call telling me to come here and see you. Well they didn't specify that it was you. I would have stayed away like you asked if I'd have known."
"No, it's…it's fine." Her mother looks surprised but happy.
"I'll give you girls some alone time while I go talk to Melissa, alright?" John kisses his wife's head before leaving to give them the privacy he talked about.
"So, you and John made it all this time?"
"Yeah. Fifteen years married. Can you believe it?"
Talia chuckles, "I'm sure your parents would be flabbergasted and scandalized."
Stiles watches as his mother laughs.
"And your children?" Talia looks over at Stiles and Scott with a smile on her face.
"Oh, no. Scott's not mine. My son is the one with Sheep Dog hair. That's Stiles." Claudia looks at Stiles and waves him over.
Stiles quickly moves Scott's arm – without waking him – and rushes over to his mothers' side, climbing up to sit by his mother.
"He looks a bit younger than I imagined." Talia smiles.
"I'll grow." He mutters, knowing she'll hear him either way.
Stiles sits, staring at his mother, as the two women converse easily. They talk like they saw each other yesterday and not at all like they haven't talked in years.
"Why haven't I met Talia?" He asks, out of the blue.
"Well, Talia has a very dangerous line of work and I helped her with it. I stopped seeing her to keep you safe."
Stiles pauses a moment for effect, as if he's mulling it over, "That's stupid."
"Darling, we don't use that word."
"Fine. That's idiotic." Stiles rolls his eyes, "Does Talia have a family?" He has to remind himself to not call her Mrs. Hale.
"Yes, I do. I have a rather large family."
"Are they in danger?"
"Well, yes, but -"
"Then why is it different for me?"
"Well…" His mother starts, thinking about it.
There's a few more moments of silence before Talia looks at Stiles mother with a horrified expression, "Claudia we just got outsmarted by a twelve year old."
"Oh my god, we did. How did I not – How did we not -"
"Dad always tells me I may be twelve but mentally I'm older."
Well, technically speaking, he is mentally older, but hey.
Just then, John knocks on the door, peaking inside.
"Just me." John walks into the room, looking a bit more sullen than he'd been when he left.
Melissa had probably told John that his wife wasn't responding to Chemo.
The deputy – Stiles remembers that his father gets promoted a couple months after his mother dies because he spends every waking second he can out of their house – walks over and hugs Stiles, kissing him on the head.
"I love you, dad." Stiles yawns as he leans on his dad, vowing to tell him that more now that he has a chance.
"I love you, too, Stiles. You should get some sleep, kiddo. It's way past your bed time." Stiles nods, climbing off the bed with a bit of difficulty.
He makes his way over to the little cot he and Scott are sharing and flops down on it. The brunet wraps Scotts arm around him like they used to do. He falls asleep to the sound of his parents and Talia talking quietly.
He dreams about his mother – about the conversations they'd had in that other universe – and wonders if she'd know he was gone. He dreams about Scott and Derek. His Scott and Derek and his pack of misfits who never belonged anywhere but with each other.
He wakes with a start – as if someone had splashed cold water onto him – to find everything in the room quiet. He looks around to find Scott still asleep beside him and his father asleep in the chair next to his mother's bed. Talia is gone and his mother is staring at a picture, glossy eyed. She's sitting there and Stiles has a feeling she's looking at a picture of herself with her husband and her child.
A child who isn't Stiles.
And it hits him like a ton of bricks: This isn't his mom. This isn't his family. The Scott lying down next to him isn't his. The energetic ball of brown fluff next to him never helped Stiles in all of his not-so-clever schemes. The man sitting in the chair next to his wife never complained about Stiles making him eat healthy. The woman in the hospital bed never died. She never helped him work out being fay. She never died with her hand clasped in his.
His heart rate picks up and the room starts spinning.
Her child is gone. He doesn't know what happened to her Stiles. Oh god, what if he'd killed him when he took over this body? His memories – the ones that aren't his, the ones that he knows didn't happen to him – make him think they merged somehow. How would this woman react to that?
Stiles gets off the cot and makes his way over to Claudia's bedside. His mother wipes away her tears and places the photograph down. He was right about the picture. It's of them at the beach. The one Stiles never went to.
He decides he has to tell her, if only to tell her that he's not her son.
"Can I tell you something?" Stiles asks, feeling nervous.
"What's wrong, Stiles?" She asks from her bed, looking worried, "Did you have another nightmare?"
Stiles shakes his head, "I love you. I love you so much and I don't wanna lose you." Stiles gets out, trying not to break and start crying.
"Oh." Claudia sighs, reaching out to Stiles, "I know you don't. And you've been so strong for me, my little prince."
Stiles climbs onto the bed – and man he can't wait for that late growth spurt – with a bit of difficulty before hugging not-his-mother. He thinks she already looks better than before.
"I love you. I love you so much, mom. I think about you all the time. I miss you so much. Dad does, too, but he doesn't say anything to me." He doesn't try to hold back his tears any more.
"Honey, I know you miss me at home and I'm sorry that I can't be there to -"
"No, you don't understand! You died. You died when I was twelve and I don't understand how, but you're here and I'm twelve and the doctor always said it was cancer, but – but – you talked to me in my dreams. You told me in my dreams and I don't know how you did it, but you did and you told me about your friend who you tethered yourself to on accident – and I know it was Talia, and I know I had no right to call her, but I can't lose you again – and – I know the reason you're dying is because you stopped helping her so I could live like a human for as long as possible, but I'd rather live as a fay with you than as a human without you -"
"Szczepan, calm down." Stiles stops talking and takes a huge breath of air, trying to get his tears under control.
"I'm not your son. I mean…I am, but this isn't my world!"
"Szczepan, look at me." Stiles looks at his not-mother's face smiling sadly at him.
"I am your mother. It doesn't matter where you came from, or what world you were born in. I will always be your mother, Stiles."
"What about your son?"
"I'd like to think my son is out there somewhere." He looks at the picture in his mothers' lap and thinks about his odd memories.
"I remember weird things. Like I remember going to a beach with you and dad, but we never did that. Dad hated the beach. After you died, we never took a vacation. Said everything reminded him of you."
"That's something we did with our son. You are still my son, perhaps you …perhaps the two of you are in there, sharing the same space?" She pokes his forehead lightly.
"Maybe." He mutters, feeling his light radiate a bit.