Things We Never Saw Coming

Safety

Wednesday, 2:30pm

         Stiles could only remember brief flashes of what had happened. He remembered the hospital, and Kate dragging him to the car. He remembered the back of her head as she drove and the car thundering off the road just before the crash.

         And then there had been pain—strong, violent pain that made every single cell in his body scream in agony. Fire tore at his limbs and ran through his bones, and for a time he was certain that he had died. Then there had been flashing lights and shouting people, and that was it. Stiles could not remember any more of that day, nor did he want to.

         When he next opened his eyes, it was to the fluorescent lights of a hospital, and the anxious murmuring of Melissa and one of the doctors.

         “Melissa,” he mumbled, his voice rasping deep in his throat.

         Melissa looked quickly at him, and relief spread across his face. “Stiles,” she said warmly, bending over him and examining the look of pain on his face. “How are you feeling?”

         “I’ve had better days,” he admitted with a small grin that quickly turned to a wince. “What did I break? What happened?”

         “Your left leg is broken, and you snapped your collarbone and a couple of ribs in the impact,” Melissa listed off, checking Stiles’ vitals on a computer monitor beside his bed. She smiled at him reassuringly, touching his hand gently. “It’s going to be a nasty recovery, but you will recover.”

         “And… and the woman in the car. What happened to her?” Stiles felt his chest constricting painfully as he thought of her: Kate, dragging him along with her; ripping him away from Derek and his life; screaming when the car peeled off the road…

         “She didn’t survive the trip over to the hospital,” Melissa said quietly, her voice gentle and reassuring to Stiles. He nodded his head fractionally, not wanting her to continue. Kate was dead, and that was all he needed to know.

         There was the sound of a commotion from the hall, and Stiles and Melissa both turned to see what was happening. The doctor who had been talking with Melissa left the room, only to appear a moment later. “They’re back,” he said, agitation clear in his voice.

         “Who’s back?” Stiles asked, trying to see who it was in the hall around the doctor’s head.

         “Your friends from the club and Scott,” Melissa said. “They’ve been going back and forth for hours now.” She rolled her eyes. “Max, maybe you could tell them to come back when-“

         “No, I want to see them,” Stiles said quickly. Melissa and Max both turned to look at him. “Or maybe just Scott and Derek?” he amended hopefully. “Please?”

         “It’s family only,” Max said, crossing his arms over his chest.

         “They are family,” Stiles persisted, looking imploringly at Melissa for help. “Scott’s my brother, and Derek—the handsomely sullen one with the pointy nose—is the future father of my children.”

         Melissa smiled thinly at him and nodded at Max, who seemed ready to object before she nodded. “I think we can make an exception just this once,” she said with amusement. Max rolled his eyes and vanished into the hall. A moment later, Scott and Derek came dashing into the room, looking anxiously at Stiles the second they entered.

         “You’re alive!” Scott exclaimed dumbly, at a loss for anything better to say. He dashed to Stiles’ side, grinning with relief. Derek followed more slowly, but a smile was stretched across his angular, serious face for once.

         “Yeah, I seem to be,” Stiles replied dryly, grinning back at his best friend. “And you? Everyone seems to be okay here.”

         “The hospital was abandoned after Kate died,” Derek said, taking another few steps until he was standing behind Scott. “Kanimas aren’t like us; they can’t get a new leader once theirs dies.”

         Stiles nodded slowly. “And Matt?”

         Derek’s jaw twitched as he clenched his jaw slightly. “Dead.”

         Stiles nodded his head slowly. He didn’t want to know what had happened beyond the most general of details. It scared him to think of what had occurred… That he had been part of it, and was responsible for Kate’s death. No, he corrected himself sternly. Kate was responsible for her own fate. She was always responsible for it. He looked up at Derek and saw the same thing reflected in his eyes. It was going to be okay, he thought. It was all going to be okay in the end.

         Derek smiled a little at him, and they looked away from each other, listening halfheartedly to Scott’s ramblings about things that didn’t matter, but would fill up the quiet. There was an unspoken calm that settled between them—all of them—that covered Stiles and made him feel something he hadn’t felt in a while: safe.