God, I love this season.

----------

After we cleaned up Scott's blood - which was disgusting, by the way - we had went to our last classes. As soon as school finished, Stiles and I went to his car.

Today Stiles was going to the cemetery with his father to visit his mother's grave. I offered to come with him, but he declined. This was something he and his dad liked to do alone each week.

There was already a car in the driveway, so Stiles drifted towards the nature strip outside of my house and put the Jeep into park. We sat in silence for a moment before I looked over to him. "I wish you had told me how bad it was."

He bit his lip a bit, before nodding, "I know. I just. . . I thought it would go away, you know?"

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? I can sit in the car while you and your dad go in."

He shook his head, "I'll be fine. I'll call you later?"

"Yeah, of course."
Giving him a quick kiss, I grabbed my bag and climbed out of the Jeep. I waved good bye as he drove away, watching until the powder blue car was out of sight.

I thought to myself as I walked to the door about everything that had been happening. This wasn't even like the past years where we were up against someone or something, yet everything still seemed bad.

Opening the door, I walked in and headed into the kitchen after sitting my keys on the front table. "Hey, Char, home already?"

When she didn't answer, I walked through to the living room in search of her. I found her sitting on the couch with a disappointed look on her face.

I was going to ask what was wrong, but one glimpse around the room and I already knew. Sitting across from Charlotte was our father, all suited up and clean shaven. He must have just come from work.
"I swear, every time my life starts to suck, you show up."

"Riley, how good to see you." I couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or sincere. "I had hoped you would have called me."

"I've been busy," I muttered. Taking a step back, I leaned against the door frame. "Char, what is he doing here?"

She went to answer, but he beat her to it. "I'm here, because I believe that you should come and live with me and Josie."

Pushing off of the wall, I laughed as I shook my head, "There is no way I'm moving in with you and Josceline. You really think that I want to live with you and the woman you cheated on my mother with? That's not happening."

My father ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Look at where you're living now. Your sister does not have the resources to care for you. And then she's off chasing her little stories and leaving you here alone. You could get hurt and she wouldn't even be here to help."

He had no idea what I had been through and survived, to be honest, a couple weeks alone was the least of my issues. It wasn't like I could tell either of them that, though.

"I have been here for her whenever she needs me, which is more than I can say for you," Charlotte spat, finally finding her voice. "And I'm going to keep looking after her."

My father stood up before straightening his jacket and rebuttoning it, "We'll see."

Stepping away from the door, I went and stood right in front of him. I began to feel my powers threatening to boil over, but kept my calm. I couldn't lose control like I had with Peter.
"Why are you doing this?"

"Because, I'm your father, and I'm doing what is best for you."

"If you wanted to do what was best for me , you never would have cheated on my mum. I'm not going to live with you, it's not happening," I claimed, standing my ground.

"You're a child, Riley, that's not up for you to decide." Picking up his briefcase, he headed towards the front door. "I hope we can sort this out before I have to bring lawyers into this, Charlotte."

"You can't just come in here after so long and decide you want to be a father!" Charlotte shouted. "You had years to make up for that, and you didn't. You don't get to take her from me."

"I'll be in contact," he replied, not even acknowledging her. "Goodbye, girls."

And with that, he left. As soon as the door shut, I turned to Charlotte, "He's not serious, is he?"

She stumbled for words as she looked at me, unable to maintain eye contact. Biting my lip, I turned away and went to my room and closed the door behind me.

My best friends were going crazy, my boyfriend was having trouble with separating reality from fantasy, and now my dad wanted to start acting like a dad. What the hell was going on?

My door reopened and Charlotte entered, moving quietly to sit beside me as I laid on my bed. "I'm not going to let him take you from me. I promise."

"Please, don't promise, Char. Last person who did that was my mum, and look where she is now."
I felt horrid for mentioning my mother in such a way, but it had been a long day already and this was the last thing that I needed on top of that.

Charlotte got me to sit up so that she could hold my hands. "I'm going to promise you anyway, but I want you to know that I'm not going to give up on you. Okay?"

My eyes fell to the ground, looking anywhere but at my sister. "Okay," I answered quietly.
The only person who had made a promise and kept it, so far, was Stiles. I didn't want her to regret it later when she had to break it.

My father rarely lost; although, I prayed that this time he would.

♡♢♤♧

The next day started slow, the first class being Coach's economics class. We only had ten minutes before class, and I was anxiously waiting by my locker for Stiles to arrive. I wanted to talk to him about what had happened with my father last night. He usually had good advice, and I would take anything at that point.

My leg shook as I checked my phone, nervously watching as time ran short. Finally, I saw him walking over to me. "Morning, I have so much to tell you," he said quickly as he kissed me on the forehead.

As we began to walk to class, he continued to speak, obviously forgetting that I had told him I needed to tell him something.
"So, my dad has been going over all the old case files and he's been trying to link them to supernatural creatures. He's found all different ones that could have been werewolves, kanimas, the lot.

"There's this one though that he can't shake. A girl and her family who had been in an accident. Apparently the girl was dragged away by coyotes, but they never found the body. It was on a full moon, so he thinks a werewolf had something to do with it."

"At least he reacted better than Melissa to the whole 'supernatural' thing," I shrugged. "Stiles-"

"I know," he said, not realising he had cut me off. "I just don't want him to feel guilty for not knowing, you know? It's not his fault that some supernatural creatures are psychotic and that normal people don't know about them."

"Did you have extra adderall today?"

His eyes widened, before he shook his head. "No. Maybe. I'm not sure. I'm too tired. Or not tired enough. It's kinda hard to tell these days."

Once we reached the classroom, I put a hand on his arm to get him to stop walking. "Are you doing any better?"

"I don't think so. But at least it's not any worse."

We went and took our seats. Scott was already in the room waiting for class to start. Stiles sat to his right, and then I sat to the right of Stiles. Coach was scratching away at the board with his chalk, muttering nonsense to himself as he did so.

Coach introduced the day's topic, going on about how we needed to listen because there was going to be a pop quiz in the next lesson. He was then reminded that a pop quiz was called a pop quiz because it was supposed to be out of the blue. Coach then proceeded to yell at this student.

As he spoke, I noticed that Stiles was taking notes. This wasn't irregular for Stiles; but Coach hadn't really said anything noteworthy as of yet.

Leaning over, I read the page of his notebook he was writing on. 'Wake up'. He had written the same two words over and over, all across the page.

I felt my eyebrows crease as I stared at it, confused. He wasn't asleep; was he?
"Stiles," I said quietly, trying not to bring Coach's attention over to us. "Stiles?"

When he continued to write, ignoring me, I leaned forward so that I could see Scott. He was also watching Stiles with a puzzled gaze. He was just as concerned as I was.

"Stilinski!" Coach shouted from the front of the classroom. "Are you paying attention back there?"
I cringed, knowing that Stiles was gonna get in trouble. But if he didn't notice me talking to him, was he going to notice Coach?

When Stiles didn't answer, just continued to write, Coach shouted his name again. When this didn't work, he brought out his whistle and blew on it rather loudly.

Finally, Stiles snapped out of it. He sat bolt upright, his forehead sweating slightly as he stared at Coach, "Uh huh?"

"I asked you a question," Coach told him, dropping his whistle to hang around his neck.

"Uh. . . sorry, Coach. What was it?"

Coach shifted from foot to foot, irritated, "Oh, it was 'Stilinski, are you paying attention back there?'"

Stiles played with the pencil in his hand, pursing his lips. "Oh. Well, I am now."

Coach pointed at him, "Stilinski, stop reminding me why I drink. . . every night."
I would have laughed if I weren't so concerned about Stiles.
"Does anybody else want to try the question on the board?"

Scott and I continued to stare at Stiles, until he finally noticed. "I'm okay. I just fell asleep for a second."

Hearing him say this made my heart sink. He wasn't getting any better, I knew that now. Scott knew it as well.

"Dude. . ." Scott said slowly, his expression more worried than I think I'd ever seen it. "You weren't asleep."

Stiles looked back to me, confused. I didn't know what to say, so I just pointed to his notebook. Stiles looked down at it, the pace of his breaths picking up right before he shut his book.

He looked at me again, but I still didn't know what to say. I couldn't tell him it was going to be alright, because I honestly wasn't too sure anymore.

♡♢♤♧

We all met up during the break to talk through what was happening and try to figure out how we could fix it. Saying that our table was glum was an understatement.

"Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" Scott asked.

"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stiles added.

And just for good measure, because it wasn't enough already, Allison tacked on, "And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?"

"They're all locked up because they're insane," Issac answered.

I glared at him from across the table, unimpressed with his comment.
Either was Stiles, apparently.
"Ha. Can you at least try to be helpful, please?"

"For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer. So being helpful is kind of a new thing for me."

Scott dropped his head as Isaac and Stiles continued to go at each other. I didn't think they would ever get along.

"Hey, dude, are you still milking that?" Stiles asking him sarcastically.

"Yeah, maybe I am still milking that."

"Would both of you just shut up!" I interrupted. "Please. There are more important things right now."

"Hi, sorry," a voice I didn't recognise said. "I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about. And I think I might actually might know what you're talking about."

Looking up, we all saw a girl standing at our table. She held her books awkwardly in front of her. When none of us answered, she pursed her lip, before continuing to talk.

"There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called 'Bardo'. It literally means 'in-between state'. The state between life and death."

"And what do they call you?" Lydia asked somewhat rudely.

"Kira," Scott answered for her. "She's in our history class."

I looked over at Scott, seeing him kind of staring at Kira. Did he have a crush on the new girl?

Lydia nodded, getting back to the main topic of conversation. "So are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?"

"Either, I guess," Kira answered as she sat down beside me. I wiggled over, getting Stiles and Scott to slide down. "But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo.

"There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities."

"Wrathful deities?" Isaac repeated. "And what are those?"

Kira shrugged a little, before answering simply, "Like demons."

"Demons," Stiles mirrored, nodding as he sighed. "Why not?"
I took hold of his hand, squeezing it gently. He was scared.

"Hold on," Allison said, eyes squinting in thought. "If there are different progressive states, then what's the last one?"

"Death," Kira shrugged again. "You die."
She had no idea that this was not a hypothetical situation. And that Stiles, Scott and Allison were not too happy to hear that answer.

We all looked at each other in silence. This wasn't how this was gonna go. We needed to get to the doc ASAP.

♡♢♤♧

"It sounds like your subconscious is trying to communicate with you," Doctor Deaton explained.

Scott, Stiles and I followed behind him, glancing at each other. What would it be trying to communicate to them, though?

"Well, how do I tell my subconscious to use a language that I actually know?" Stiles asked.
He had lost his peppy demeanour, the lack of real sleep beginning to get to him.

Stiles had been telling us about the dream he had had during in Coach's class, when he was actually awake. His dream told him that he was already in class, but when he got there, everyone was silent. He tried to talk to them, but they only used sign language.

Deaton looked over his shoulder at Stiles, "Do you remember what the sign language looked like? The placement and movement of the hands?"

"You know sign language?" Scott asked, surprised.

"I know a little. Let me give it a shot."

Stiles held his hands up, "Okay, the first one was like this."
He began to make the movements he remembered, Doctor Deaton piecing them together as he watched.

When Stiles finished showing him the sign language, Deaton told us what it meant. "'When is a door not a door?'"

"'When is a door not a door?'" Stiles repeated, blinking in frustration.

Thinking for a moment, Scott answered the question. "When it's ajar."

"You're kidding me. A riddle?" Stiles looked super pissed off. "My subconscious wants to tell me a riddle?"

"Seems on par with everything else in our lives," I muttered.

"That's not necessarily what's happening," Deaton responded. "When the three of you went under the water, when you crossed from unconsciousness to a kind of superconsciousness. . . you essentially opened a door in your minds."

"So what does that mean?" Scott asked him. "The door's still open?"

"Ajar," Deaton clarified.

"A door into our minds?" Stiles said slowly.

Sighing, I lolled my head back a little. "This doesn't sound good."

"I did tell you it was risky," Deaton told the boys.

Scott wasn't one to dwell, moving the conversation forward. "What do we do about it?"

"Well, that's difficult to answer."

"Oh, no, wait a second," Stiles said quickly. "I know that look. That's the 'we know exactly what's wrong with you, but we have no idea how to fix it' look."

"One thing I do know, is that having an opening like that into your mind, it's not good."

"Then we need to do something about it," I told him.

"And we will," Deaton nodded. He then turned to the boys, "You each need to close that door. And you need to do it as soon as possible."

♡♢♤♧

We left the clinic not long after that, talking quietly amongst ourselves. When we opened the door to the clinic, a car pulled up in front of us.

When the driver got out, I recognised him to be Sheriff Stilinski. Stiles was apparently just as confused to see him, asking him why he was here.

"I'm here because I could use some help," He explained. He then look over to Scott, "Actually. . . your help."

"Why me?" Scott asked him.
Considering he was the werewolf with the powers, I wasn't surprised. So, I don't know why Scott was.

"Because eight years ago, almost an entire family died in a car accident. One of the bodies, a young girl names Malia, was never found. There's enough evidence to have me thinking that. . . that a werewolf could have caused the accident and then dragged the body away.

"If you could somehow get a lock on her scent if you could somehow help me find her body, it might provide the missing clue," Sheriff Stilinski explained.

"But what if it was a werewolf?" Stiles asked.

The boy's father turned to him. "Well, there's somebody out there who murdered an entire family. Someone who still needs to be caught."

Sheriff Stilinski was really taking the whole supernatural thing kind of hard. At least now he was trying to channel it into something positive.