[3x18; Riddled]

The ground was cold beneath her feet. The skin on the bottom of her feet, pampered and soft, had never been outside for so long in freezing temperatures; long had the iciness dulled into an ache that never left, buzzing through her heels, arches, and toes. She was thankful for the softness beneath her feet; it had been a miracle that she hadn't stepped on a sharp twig or even a piece of glass laying on the forest floor.

"Olivia..."

Olivia rapidly turned toward the whisper, his familiar voice caressing her ears. No one stood before her; for a hundred feet or so, there was nothing in front of her except for a fallen tree, some bushes, and ferns, untouched by everything except for the frost in the air. The wind blew slightly, brushing her hair across her back and rustling the leaves on the trees around her, but other than that, there was no movement. She was alone.

"Livvy...please..."

It was Stiles again.

She turned once more and strode forward, following his voice. She ignored her numb toes in her determination and when she caught sight of a tall frame with messy hair, hiding just behind one of the large trees in front of her, she sped up her pace. She hustled toward the tree, her heart beating wildly.

"Stiles?"

He wasn't there. She could have sworn that he was.

She whipped around, impatiently brushing her hair out of her face, and searched the area nearby. Waiting for a few seconds, she inhaled sharply when she saw familiar blue, plaid-patterned pajama pants. Stiles quickly stepped out from behind the tree he was hiding behind and turned back to her with a worried look.

"Livvy?"

"Stiles!" she hurried after him.

But Stiles kept walking away from her. The worried look was gone, and though she couldn't see his face, his whole body had tensed, like he was ready for a fight. No matter how quickly she sped up, he outran her.

"Olivia."

His voice came from behind her now, even though she could still very clearly see his form in front of her. She turned again. Stiles stood in front of her now, only inches away from her face, staring down at her with cold eyes. He was no longer wearing his pajamas but a black-and-gray striped hoodie and dark jeans, his hair matted flat against his head. It was the shadows that bruised his eyes that worried her the most. They were worse than the other day when she sent him to the hospital.

"Stiles?"

The Stiles in front of her slowly smirked. It sent a chill up her spine.

"Run," someone, something, in her head told her to go. By now, she knew to listen to that voice.

She fled, but there was another Stiles. He was in his pajamas once again, and he was trapped against a tree, tied up with strong ropes and some kind of metal trap that encased his left ankle. His head popped up from its resting place against his chest, his face red and wet from frantic tears. He looked absolutely miserable and so, so frightened.

"Livvy, please help me," he whispered to her.

"You can't help him." It was the other Stiles she had come across and his tone was cruel as he slowly stalked around her. A wicked smirk made his lips tilt as his eyes went back and forth between her and the pajama-clad Stiles, full of mischief and strife. "He's mine now."

Olivia snapped her teeth together, fear and anger pulsing through her veins. "Who are you?"

Stiles' evil twin laughed mockingly. "I'm Stiles. Stiles is me. We're one," his voice changed until he was almost singing; she clenched her fists, heart racing. "There's nothing you can do about that, little Anchoram."

His voice echoed in her head, harmonizing with the familiar whispers that had haunted her mind ever since her father bit her.

There's nothing you can do about that...He's mine...He's mine...He's mine...

-

The buzz of a phone reaching his sensitive ears woke Scott up from a deep sleep. His tired eyes ached as he squinted at the time on the screen; he'd only been asleep for an hour.

Like many nights before in the years of his teenage-hood, Stiles was calling him in the middle of the night. For some reason, though, this call felt off—and he hadn't even answered the phone yet. Stiles had been having a hard time sleeping for almost a month now and even then, he had insisted on not bothering him with his nightmares. He didn't mind being woken up—come on, it's Stiles—but it was worrying that he started up his habit of midnight calling after a few months of radio silence.

Scott picked up his phone and quickly pressed the green button. "Hey, man, what's up?" there was no answer, just heavy breathing. He was familiar enough with Stiles to know that it was him on the other line; he just didn't know why he wasn't saying anything. "Stiles? Stiles, you there?"

Finally an answer. "Scott?" Stiles' voice was as hoarse as it was quiet and he could hear the utter fear encased in his words.

"Yeah, I'm here," Scott sat up in bed, his concern for his best friend growing. Was his night terror so bad he was calling while still asleep? "Are you okay?"

"Scott, I don't—I don't know where I am," Stiles whimpered. "I don't know how I got here. I think I was sleepwalking."

"Okay, um, can you see anything? Just, you know, tell me what you see."

"Ah, it's dark. It's hard to see,. I think there's something wrong with my—"

Abruptly, the line disconnected.

Scott inhaled sharply and pulled the phone from his ear, hurriedly redialing Stiles' number. The room around him seemed to spin as he waited for Stiles to answer the call, and he stood up from his bed to ground himself.

"Hey!" came Stiles' voice; unfortunately, it was his voicemail. "This is Stiles and you missed me. Leave a message!"

Scott pressed the 'end' button and then redialed again. "Come on," he hissed to himself, hoping that he'd get an answer. "Come on, Stiles."

"Hey! This is Stiles—!"

He hung up. "God, come on, come on, come on..." before he could redial again, a phone call from Stiles popped up on his screen; he quickly answered. "Stiles?"

"Scott," Stiles was still whispering and breathing heavily. "I don't think I can get out of here. I can't move."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know, I don't know," Stiles repeated helplessly. "It's too dark. I can't see much and something's wrong with my leg. It's stuck on something and it's—I think it's bleeding."

Shit, this is not good. Sleepwalking is one thing. Sleepwalking and injuring yourself is another.

"How bad?" he asked, bracing himself. "Stiles, how bad is it?" there was no answer; panic shot through Scott's veins. "Stiles, are you there? Can you hear me?"

Stiles inhaled sharply on his end of the line. "Ah, there's some kind of smell down here. Something smells terrible. It's brutal, my eyes are watering."

"Okay, listen, I'm gonna call your dad—"

"No, no, no, no, don't," Stiles insisted, his voice cracking.

"But your dad—"

"Don't," he interrupted him. "Just please don't call him. Promise you won't. He already worries about me too much...Scott, please."

"What if I can't find you? Stiles, I can't make a promise like that."

"No, no, no, just please..." Stiles paused, sniffling. "Please, don't call him. Come find me. You can do it. He doesn't have to know. Scott, you can find me."

Scott let out a desperate gasp, his heart clenching anxiously. "I don't know if I can do this."

Stiles sniffed again and let out a long, shuddering breath. "Oh, I gotta call you back. I have to turn the phone off."

"What? No, hey, wait—"

"I'm gonna call you right back—" the line cut off.

"Hold on, Stiles wait! Hold on, man," Scott paused his desperate pleads and turned away from his phone in order to get Isaac's attention. "Isaac! Isaac, get up, I need your help! Isaac!"

While he waited for Isaac to get out of bed, he hurried to his dresser, turning on the lamp as he went. He grabbed some jeans and a hoodie just as his door opened and Isaac appeared, hair ruffled from sleep.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Stiles," Scott grabbed the extra bike helmet he kept on his dresser and tossed it to him. "Get dressed."

"What's wrong with Stiles?"

"I don't know."

"Should we call Liv?"

"I don't know!" Scott answered a little too harsh. He frowned at the meek look on Isaac's face. "Sorry, sorry. Uh, yeah, we should call her."

Isaac nodded and retreated from the room, presumably to get dressed. Scott fumbled with his phone and pressed on Olivia's phone number, pressing the device to his ear while he waited for her to answer. The ringing never stopped and after a moment, her voicemail message started.

"Hi, you called Olivia. Leave a message."

All the air in his lungs swooshed out. Olivia should have known that something was going on with Stiles...Did she try to look for him without help? Did she get caught up in whatever was happening to Stiles?

He stomped out of his room at the same time that Isaac entered the hallway. "Liv's not answering her phone."

"She didn't answer me either," Isaac blinked rapidly as he tried to figure out what was going on. "She would know, right? I-I mean..."

"That's what I was thinking," Scott placed a shaky hand on Isaac's shoulder and tried to be reassuring. "She might be sleeping. Come on, we gotta go."

Isaac nodded and followed him through the hallway and down the stairs. By the time they entered the front room, Scott's phone was ringing. He had hoped that it was Olivia, but he was glad to see Stiles' name on the screen, nevertheless.

"Hey, Stiles," in his haste to answer, he dropped his helmet to the floor; Isaac swiftly ducked, picked it up, and handed it back to him.

"Did you call him? Did you call my dad?"

"No, just Isaac. We're coming to find you," Scott informed him. "Can you figure out where you are? Try to find something and tell us where to look."

"It's a basement," Stiles spoke shakily. "I think...I think I'm in some kind of basement."

"In a house?"

"No, it looks bigger, like industrial. I think there's a furnace but it's cold. I-It's freezing down here. I-I gotta turn the—I gotta turn the phone off. It's going to die."

"Wait, wait, wait, what else is there?" Scott asked hurriedly. "What do you see?"

"The phone's dying, I can't talk," Stiles' voice lowered into a quiet whisper. "I have to go...Please just—"

"Stiles, why are you whispering?" dread grew in his belly.

There was a long silence. "Because I think there's someone in here with me."

-

When Scott burst into Stiles' room, Isaac right on his tail, he had expected that Lydia might be in there. He had seen her car parked at the curb in front of the house and he knew that if her banshee abilities were anything like that side of Olivia's powers, he guessed that she had felt Stiles' disappearance...or heard it.

"You knew," he breathed, relieved to see her. Her presence calmed him down long enough to straighten his back and look around the room, eyes widening at the clumps of photographs and red yarn pinned all over Stiles' room. "He didn't call you, did he?"

Lydia nodded, answering his unspoken question. "I heard it."

"Don't ask," Aiden, who, up until that point, Scott was trying to ignore, spoke up. "it gets more confusing when you ask."

Scott held back his eye roll. It wasn't confusing to him.

"Okay..." Isaac drawled, eyes darting between Scott, Aiden, and Lydia. "Well, Liv's not answering her phone."

"I think she's out there," Lydia's lips trembled, the dimple in her left cheek appearing. "I think she knew that he was in trouble and she tried to find him, but now I think she's lost too."

"So, we have to find both of them, okay," Scott nodded quickly and tried not to panic. It would have been so much easier to find Stiles if Olivia was around. If he factored in his own worry for her, he'd probably have a breakdown. And he couldn't do that; Stiles and Olivia depended on him. "He uses red for unsolved cases," his eyes trailed over the room again.

"Maybe he thinks he's part of an unsolved case?" Aiden suggested.

"Or is an unsolved case," Isaac added, shrugging.

"Did he give you any hint about where he could be?" Lydia asked Scott.

"He said he was in an industrial basement somewhere. We came here to get a better scent."

"What else did he say?"

Scott filled Lydia and Aiden in on the rest of what they knew; his leg was bleeding and he was freezing.

"Tonight's the coldest night of the year," Aiden voiced his concern. "It's going to drop into the twenties."

Lydia blinked slowly; Scott could hear her heart racing nervously. "What did his dad say?"

"We kind of didn't tell him yet."

"Stiles is bleeding somewhere and my cousin is missing. Both of them are probably freezing to death somewhere and you didn't call Sheriff Stilinski?" she asked sharply. "Scott, Stiles took his Jeep!"

Scott lowered his head. He hadn't noticed that. He was preoccupied with his thoughts of Stiles missing and the presence of Lydia's car and her banshee abilities to notice. They wouldn't be able to find his scent because he hadn't walked out of the house.

Shit, shit, shit, shit...

He made a quick decision. "Okay, we need more help. Lydia, you call Derek and tell him about Stiles and Liv. Isaac, you get ahold of Allison—"

"So, we're getting everyone but the cops to help?" Lydia interrupted him, frustrated. "Great idea."

"You do remember that she gets these feelings when someone's about to die, right?" Aiden reminded him.

"I know," Scott shot him a glare before looking back at Lydia. "And I was gonna say that I'm going to the police station to tell Stiles' dad. It's five minutes away."

Lydia pressed her lips together in approval, nodding slowly. "We'll catch up."

"What? Why?"

"There's something here," Lydia looked around the room again.

"Yeah, evidence of total insanity," Isaac commented, taking one last look around the chaotic room.

Scott's stomach swooped again. "We can figure out what's wrong with him after we find a way to keep him from freezing to death."

Lydia waved at them hurriedly. "Go, we'll be right behind you."

-

She wasn't in the woods anymore. Instead of stepping on damp leaves, the soles of her feet met smooth concrete, still cold to the touch. Olivia had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there from the woods, but she was scared. The echo-y cries that reached her ears sounded just like Stiles. The screams haunted her.

"Stiles?"

Olivia continued walking down the concrete hallway with no lights to guide her. She just followed the screams and used numb fingers to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

Come find me. Come find me. You're almost there. Keep going. Stiles, Stiles, Stiles...

Abruptly, Olivia walked straight into a wall. Her face was so numb she could hardly feel the sting from the impact against the rough surface, but there was still a little ache there. She was just reaching up to rub her nose when she heard a voice—Stiles' voice.

"Who's there? Who are you?"

"Stiles!" she called out to him, hoping he'd hear her.

Instead, he started speaking calmly in Japanese. When did he learn Japanese?

"What?" it was Stiles again. Was he talking to himself? "I don't—I don't understand!"

He spoke again in Japanese and then translated for himself. "Not who are you, Stiles. Who are we?"

Olivia slapped her hand on the rough wall. "Stiles, can you hear me? Stiles!"

"It's getting colder, Stiles," he continued to speak, having a two-sided conversation with himself. "Did you notice that we've stopped shivering?"

She paused, having not noticed that herself. Long gone were the small tremors that wracked her body, but in its wake was a stinging cold that left her almost numb.

"Do you know why that's a bad sign?"

"Hypothermia," Olivia whispered, answering the question he seemed to be asking himself. "Our bodies are trying to conserve energy."

Soon, their speech would start to thicken and then would come the fatigue and confusion. They were going to die if she couldn't get to him.

"Stiles!" she yelled now, hoping to get his attention. "Stiles, let me in!"

She pounded her fists on the wall again and again, yet it held firm. She could feel the skin on her knuckles starting to break, could feel the warm blood slip down her numb fingers, but she ignored it.

"Stiles, please!"

It felt like ages that she had tried to get through the wall. Stiles continued to talk to himself and either he couldn't hear her screams or he could hear them and he was ignoring them.

"Do you know any riddles, Stiles?" he whispered a reply, hardly loud enough for Olivia to hear. He was getting tired, probably. "What gets bigger the more you take away? What gets wetter the more it dries? When is a door not a door? Everyone has it, but no one can lose it?"

"I don't know."

She could hear Stiles starting to panic. "Stiles!"

"What is it, Stiles?!"

"I don't know."

"Everyone has it, but no one can lose it."

"I DON'T KNOW!"

More tears slipped down Olivia's face as Stiles screamed, pure agony and fear heavy in the way his voice trembled. She leaned her forehead against the wall and sobbed, feeling utterly useless. How was she supposed to save him? How was she supposed to be an anchor and yet be totally and irrevocably worthless?

"Stiles...please...Stiles..."

-

There was no one on the hospital roof when Derek got there. Stiles' scent lingered, some type of spicy cologne and sweat, but the teenager was nowhere to be found. Even more concerning, Derek couldn't find any hint of Olivia anywhere. There was no cinnamon or apple to create that mix of Stiles and Olivia that Derek had begrudgingly gotten used to since they started dating.

Slowly, Derek walked away from the door, following Stiles' scent to the large generator caged within a twelve-foot square of expensive wire. He faltered, almost weighed down by the emotion hidden within the smell of Stiles; whatever Stiles had been doing on this roof was important but he didn't know why.

The sound of rubber soles against concrete came from behind him. Scott and Isaac had caught up, it seemed.

"He's not here," he told them without turning around, his eyes glued to the generator in front of him. "not anymore."

"You mean the whole building?"

Isaac quickly followed Scott's question with his own. "What about Liv?"

"She wasn't here and he's gone," Derek answered.

Isaac excused himself to go tell Sheriff Stilinski about Stiles and when Scott asked that he find Allison, he easily agreed. Once he was gone, Scott walked over to Derek's side, pausing when he took in the absolute headiness of Stiles' scent.

"Notice how strong the scent is up here? Ever hear of chemo signals?" when Scott shook his head, he continued, "Chemical signals that communicate emotion. Just our sweat can give off anger, fear, or disgust...Take a deep breath and tell me what you feel."

Scott inhaled deeply...within seconds, he felt something take hold. "Stress."

Derek nodded. "And anxiety." That wasn't a new chemo signal that Stiles gave off, but this time it felt different. Like he was fighting something...

"What was he doing up here?"

"I don't know but there was definitely some kind of struggle."

"With who?"

"With himself," Derek didn't know what that meant for Stiles. Was he struggling to wake up? Was he having a bad dream? Or was something else going on here?

-

It was an hour later by the time that Derek had cleared the high school and the Martin house looking for Olivia and Stiles. Olivia's scent in her bedroom was hours old and when it led out to her backyard and then the preserve, he quickly lost it to the natural habitat that grew there.

A low growl escaped his throat but he didn't allow himself to be caught up in his emotions any further. He had experience with that; when the time was right, he could conduct himself almost clinically, prioritizing others' needs before his. Tonight was one of those times. Olivia and Stiles were counting on them, on him, and he couldn't freak out like an inexperienced teenager.

Derek inhaled deeply and hunkered down, trying to find Olivia's apple pie scent. He slowly walked deeper into the preserve, following his nose and sometimes changing his direction in order to catch something. He must have walked a mile, chasing something that wasn't there, when he became aware of Peter's presence.

A little late, he mused to himself. He called Peter over an hour before with news of Olivia and Stiles' disappearances.

"Find anything?" Peter's expression was abnormally serious. It surprised Derek; this was the most emotion that Peter had spared toward Olivia since his resurrection. He had always just assumed that his barely-there fatherly instincts were burned away by the fire with the rest of the good qualities of his personality. Maybe his was hiding his instincts under a thick layer of narcissism, vindictiveness, and arrogance.

"I'm trying to catch a scent. No luck so far."

"Then we keep going."

Derek didn't need to voice his agreement; the two started walking again, trying to find anything that would give them a hint of where Olivia and Stiles went. A half-hour of nothing went by before they came across one of the Preserve's parking lots, near the spot of woods where Olivia turned Malia Tate back into a human after eight years of being a coyote.

To their surprise, a black SUV pulled into the lot soon after. Derek walked over to it, recognizing both Melissa and Agent McCall, while Peter paced, still scenting for the two missing teenagers.

"Derek," Melissa acknowledged him with raised brows. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Looking for Olivia and Stiles," he glanced uncertainly at Agent McCall. "And you?"

"Rafael had a thought," Melissa paused and Derek had to keep himself from making a snarky remark about the seven-foot-tall asshole. "He thinks Stiles might be sleeping still."

"And that led you here?"

"In the transcript of Scott's conversation, Stiles mentioned his eyes stinging from some sort of smell," Agent McCall stated. "It made me think of the coyote den where we found Malia Tate's belongings. We sprayed so the coyote wouldn't come ba—"

Before he could finish, Peter was calling his name. A slight breeze had drifted by them and it had Peter's hackles raising immediately, sensing both Olivia and Stiles nearby. "They're here somewhere."

Derek took off, following the scent. "They're at the coyote den!"

It didn't take long to get to the cliff where the coyote den was snuggled between humongous rocks, forming a cave only a few feet in circumference. Near the mouth of the den, passed out on the rocks, was Olivia. She had bloody hands and feet and her lips were starting to turn blue from the cold.

Derek instantly got down on his knees next to her, ignoring the sharp pebbles digging into his kneecaps, and checked her pulse. Sighing in relief when he felt her strong heartbeat, he wrapped his arms fully around her in order to start warming her up.

"Peter, is Stiles in the cave?"

Peter tore his eyes off his daughter and dipped his head into the coyote den. "He's here."

"Melissa!" Derek raised his voice so the McCalls, who had been straggling behind them, could hear. "They're here!"

Within a minute, Melissa and Agent McCall arrived at the den. They didn't even pause to catch their breath before Melissa was crawling into the small space; Stiles started screaming as she grabbed him and started pulling him out, begging her to leave him alone.

Derek wasn't an emotional man and he didn't much like Stiles, but it hurt his heart to hear the utter fear in Stiles' voice. It was worrying, then, that Olivia didn't even stir at all of the commotion. Stiles sobbed and screamed, only quieting when he woke up from his nightmare, and still, she hadn't woken up.

This is all very, very wrong.

Two hours later, after Stiles and Olivia were checked into the hospital and on the mend, the thought was still on Derek's mind. Even as he pulled his car into the spot next to Stiles' jeep so that he and Aiden could jump it, he couldn't think about anything else. Never had he felt so disturbed about something that he was missing; and they had to be missing something about this whole thing.

Aiden climbed into the driver's side of the jeep and unlatched the hood. Derek quickly opened it and attached the jumper cables to the battery, nodding at him to turn the engine over. Once it had started, Aiden jumped back out to start a conversation while they waited for the battery to boost.

"So, you think he was just sleepwalking..." sometimes Derek just wished the kid would shut up. "or is there something more to it?"

Unfortunately, Aiden happened to be right. "In this town, there's always something more."

"What if I told you I know something more?" Aiden prompted as Derek detached the cables and closed the hood of the jeep, engine still running. He raised his eyebrows, curious. "I kind of overheard—well, I listened in on Stiles talking to Olivia and Scott. He thinks he was the one who wrote that message in the Chemistry room, the message telling Barrow to kill Kira."

It didn't even take a second for Derek to get what Aiden was hinting at. "You think Stiles—skinny, defenseless Stiles—is the Nogitsune? A powerful, dark spirit?"

"I'm not the only one thinking it," Aiden defended himself. "I'm just the only one saying."

Still, Derek didn't want to believe it. "This thing wants to possess someone and chooses Stiles? Why wouldn't it take someone bigger or stronger? Someone with a little more power..."

Even as he denied Aiden's claim, his mind was overworking. There was a possibility it could be Stiles, after all. Stiles wasn't a weak guy by any human means—just supernatural—and power didn't only have to come from physical strength. As much as Derek hated to admit it, Stiles was one of the smartest people he knew—barring Olivia and Lydia, of course—and arguably the glue of the McCall pack. If a dark spirit wanted to possess someone at the heart of the pack, it'd be him.

He needed to talk to Kira to find out exactly what Barrow did to her at the power station.

-

-

Olivia hated being confined to a hospital bed while everything was so screwed up. Her hands and feet—scraped up, scratched, and bloody upon arrival—had been cleaned and bandaged with only one set of stitches needed on her left hand. She was slowly warming up thanks to the warm blankets covering the entire length of her body and the IV pushing fluid into her veins. She was practically at full health, yet there she was, playing patient when her boyfriend was in much more trouble than she was.

She chanced a glare at Melissa once again, but the nurse caught it and just shook her head. "You're staying the rest of the night and most of tomorrow, Olivia. Doctor's orders."

"Well, the doctor doesn't know anything," Olivia grumbled. Already she had sent away Natalie, Peter, and Derek—her cousin helping out by jumping Stiles' jeep, left dead in the parking lot—and soon after, Lydia and Scott had come into her room to wait for news on Stiles. Half an hour later, both of Scott's parents had joined the group, none of them even having the energy to glare at Agent McCall just for his existence.

"Please, just relax, Liv," Lydia whispered, eyes tired and red.

Olivia couldn't relax, though. If she relaxed, she'd fall asleep. And if she fell asleep, she wouldn't get news on Stiles.

Any moment now, Noah would come to her room—Scott had been nice enough to let the sheriff know about their whereabouts—and tell them how Stiles was doing. The only news they had gotten so far was from Melissa, who let them know that Stiles was going through a psychiatry consult while he warmed up from his long night in the cold. Why that took two hours, they didn't know.

Thankfully, at that moment, Noah stepped into the room.

"He's sleeping now," he told them somberly. "and he's just fine. He doesn't remember much. It's a bit like a dream to him."

Olivia knew she should be relieved that Stiles didn't remember the traumatizing night, but that left more questions on what had actually happened. She only remembered bits and pieces of her walk through the woods, trying to find Stiles, and she was pretty sure she was gonna go crazy before all of it came back to her.

Still, Stiles was all right for tonight. He was safe at the moment.

"Thanks," Noah held his hand out to Agent McCall to shake.

"It was that repellent we sprayed in the coyote den to keep other animals out," McCall explained. "I couldn't go near it without my eyes watering. It's just a good thing he mentioned it over the phone."

"No, it was more than that," Noah insisted. "Thank you."

"It was a lucky connection—"

Noah cut him off, irritated with the agent's avoidance. "McCall, can you shut up, please, and accept my sincerest gratitude."

"Accepted."

As the two fathers shook hands, Olivia and Scott exchanged an annoyed eye roll at the latter's "gene donor", as he so elegantly put it days before. Only would Rafael McCall be so annoying while the father of an injured teen thanked him.

Now that the awkward handshake was over, Melissa turned to Scott and Lydia, who were sitting in the loveseat on the left side of Olivia's bed. "All right, you two. You've got school in less than six hours. Go home, go to sleep."

Lydia immediately turned to Olivia. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

Olivia smiled. "I'll be fine, Lyd. Promise. I'm tired, so I'll probably just go to sleep right away, anyway. Besides, I need you to get my notes for tomorrow."

"Only you would think of school at a time like this," Scott grinned weakly at her. "Sleep well."

"You too."

As Olivia watched everyone leave the hospital room, she hoped that whatever happened that night wouldn't haunt her when she closed her eyes.

-

The slope of Stiles' nose always fascinated Olivia. It was perfect and she could even calculate the angle using some algebra formula that she didn't bother remembering at the moment. In conclusion, Stiles' nose was too cute—cuter than she had ever thought a man's nose could be.

His nose wasn't the only perfect feature on Stiles' face. Though some girls might have thought that Stiles looked nerdy—what the fuck were they on, this man was gorgeous—she knew how beautiful he truly was. His jawline was ace, his lips were slightly too big, but proportional to the rest of his face, and the moles that formed constellations on his skin made her feel like she was staring at the night sky. Everything about Stiles was memorable. She couldn't look away, she didn't want to look away.

Olivia sat still in the seat next to Stiles' bed, waiting for him to wake up. After an enormous amount of begging to Melissa, and a promise to stay under a blanket and hooked up to her IV, she was able to take her spot by Stiles' side. She had been watching him sleep for a while now, long enough for Melissa and Noah's conversation to ebb and for her to think about what they had whispered to each other, hoping that she couldn't hear.

Frontotemporal Dementia was what was whispered between them. It was the disease that Claudia Stilinski was eventually killed from, the one that Stiles reluctantly spoke to her about when they had the conversation about their dead mothers. It was the only form of dementia that was able to appear in younger people, including teenagers. She could remember him whispering to her that he was afraid that he'd end up like his mom one day.

Oh, how Olivia wished that he was wrong; she wished that he never had to worry about that. Unfortunately, it was a very real fear, especially now with his symptoms that had shown up out of nowhere. Symptoms that matched Claudia Stilinski's.

Olivia had never met anyone that had Dementia or Alzheimer's, but she had obviously read about it. It was said to be one of the most painful of diseases to die from, though it was easier for the patient than their loved ones. Families watched the people they loved most slowly disappear right in front of them, and there was no cure. It ate and ate at a person until there was nothing left but an empty shell.

What if Stiles ended up that way? What if she had to watch as he faded away until he wasn't even Stiles anymore? Because if he did have it, there was no way she could leave him. If there was dementia housed up in that brilliant brain of his, she would be by his side the whole way. God, it would hurt. It would hurt a lot, but she'd do it because she loved him too much not to.

Olivia wasn't really a believer of God, but sometimes, she knew that things happened for a reason. At that moment, she knew that it was no coincidence that she ended up being so interested in science. One day, she'd cure Alzheimer's and Dementia.

Stiles' perfect nose twitched as his face twisted into a grimace. Olivia sat up, relieved to see him waking, and watched as he blinked rapidly and slowly set his weary, brown-eyed gaze on her. "Livvy?"

"Hey there, sweetcheeks," she smiled as convincingly as she could. "I think you got more sleep than I did."

It was true. It was already two in the afternoon. Within an hour and a half, Scott would be arriving so he could give Stiles his support during his testing. An MRI was scheduled, and that was only the beginning.

Stiles quickly grabbed for the remote that controlled the bed, television, and nurse's button; the bed slowly came up until Stiles was in a seated position. He squirmed around for a moment, getting comfortable with the pillow against his back.

"Yeah, sorry. The nurses wouldn't let your dad bring your pillow."

"The nurses here are too strict," Stiles rolled his eyes. "Are you okay? Dad said you were admitted too."

"I'm fine, just a few scratches," she waved him off, not wanting him to worry about her. "How are you feeling? Still tired? Are you hurting anywhere? Are you hungry? I think they had chocolate pudding in the cafeteria, I can ask Melissa to get you some. They might still have some leftover food from lunch, but it was pretty gross and I don't want to subject you to—"

"Babe, I don't think I've ever heard you ramble before." He swiftly cut her off, a small smile playing at his lips. "I'm okay. I'm not hurting or anything like that, though I am a bit hungry. Do you think Scott would stop by the diner on his way here?"

She didn't scold him for the pet name. He was in a hospital bed, he could call her anything he wanted. "I can ask. Let me—"

"No, no, wait," he grabbed her hand before she could attempt to get up, eyeing the IV hanging off the pole next to her chair. "Stay with me, please."

"Okay." She intertwined their fingers, noticing that his hands were cool and dry. "I think you need some lotion, Stiles. You're getting scaly."

Stiles snorted. "Cool, I'll be like a dragon."

"I can work with a dragon," Olivia smiled weakly. As long as he was there.

Her line of thinking must have shown on her face because his tentative smile dropped. Her stomach turned; she didn't know if Stiles knew about the testing he'd be doing later, but either way, she wanted to be strong for him. She hadn't done a great job so far.

"You know about the testing?" he asked quietly.

"I overheard Noah and Melissa talking about it," Olivia inhaled deeply. "but everything's going to be okay. If you do have it, we'll figure something out."

"Neither of us are optimistic, Livvy," Stiles sighed heavily. "There's no cure. If I have this, and I'm ninety-nine percent sure I do, there's a chance I'll be gone by the time I'm eighteen. Eighteen."

Olivia scooched forward in her chair so she could be closer to his bed, tears already stinging her eyes. "Please don't talk like that, Stiles. Please," she rested her forehead against their combined hands, pressing her lips to the space between his thumb and index finger. "I can't—we'll do something. Scott, he can—"

"There's no guarantee that the bite can heal me."

Stiles' voice was almost a grumble; it made her look back up at him. "If it did, would you take it?"

"Do you mean, would I become a werewolf?" Stiles asked, eyebrows cocked. When she nodded, he did too. "Yeah. If it means staying alive, I'd do anything. I don't want to leave my dad, or Scott, or you."

"You're not gonna leave us," she assured him with a whisper. Getting to her feet, she leaned over him and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. "Everything is going to be okay, Stiles. It has to."

-

If this was any other circumstance, Olivia would have laughed at the baffled look on the doctor's face. Currently, he was staring down at Stiles' chart with wide eyes, his mouth forming shapes over and over again as he tried to sound out Stiles' legal name. Olivia didn't see what was so hard about Mieczyslaw. It was easy for her to pronounce.

Then again, this particular doctor was an idiot.

"I'm not sure I know how to pronounce this or if it's not actually a misspelling," he muttered, glancing at Noah unsurely.

"I'm sure you've seen a Polish name before," Olivia rolled her eyes at that man, enjoying the way he bristled in offense. She didn't feel bad for him, if he could pronounce some of the wacky medicines they used in the medical field, he could say Stiles' name without any difficulty.

While Stiles and Scott laughed freely at Olivia's comment, Noah held back a laugh and stared at the doctor unimpressed. "Just call him Stiles."

"Okay, Stiles," he emphasized, turning to Stiles, who sat on the MRI table, Scott standing next to him. "Just to warn you, you're going to hear a lot of noise during the MRI. It's due to pulses of electricity going through metal coils inside the machine. If you want, we can get you some earplugs or headphones."

"Oh, no," Stiles shook his head, unbothered, and scratched his temple. "no, I don't need anything."

"Hey," Noah got his attention. "we're just on the other side of that window, okay?"

"Okay." Stiles patted Noah's shoulder when he hesitated, but soon the sheriff was walking out of the room with the doctor.

"If it was me, I would have chosen headphones," Olivia joked just so she wouldn't cry. This was it; they'd find out soon if Stiles had dementia. Stiles smiled weakly back at her and accepted the hug and kiss she gave him. "I love you, sweetcheeks."

"I love you."

Olivia gave Scott a pointed look, one that said to meet her in the waiting room. Unfortunately, only so many people could be in the booth with the doctor, and Melissa had already volunteered to wait with Noah, so they were stuck in the waiting room for news.

She quickly left the room and waved at Noah through the booth's window, indicating where'd she'd be. A thumb's up later, she was stalking through the hallway to the almost-empty radiology waiting room. Derek was there, waiting for her.

"You okay?" this was the first time Derek had seen her that day, but she didn't mind. She wasn't in any kind of delicate medical condition where he needed to be by her side all day.

"I'm okay," she sat in the chair next to him. "Stiles? Not so much."

Derek's face fell. "I'm sorry, Ollie."

"Do you think—I mean, if he does have it...Would the bite fix him?"

"I think it would. It helped Erica's seizures..."

There was no guarantee, though. She caught what he didn't say.

Olivia sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Ollie, I have to talk to you and Scott about something..."

She raised her head, staring at him with wide eyes. The look on his face was telling tales of his emotions, something that Derek wasn't known for. There was fear and anxiety and reluctance. Whatever he had to tell her and Scott, it wasn't good news.

"What?" it was not Olivia who asked, but Scott. He walked into the waiting room, wiping his cheeks from the emotional encounter he had with Stiles seconds before.

"Remember when I took Cora back to South America?" both Olivia and Scott nodded—yeah, she remembered, considering she had to hire Braeden to rescue him and Peter from the Calaveras. "Well, that's not the only reason I left. I needed to talk to my mother."

Olivia inhaled sharply. "You spoke with Aunt Talia?" that explained sewing Peter's finger back on; he obviously did the alpha ritual on Derek, but she had been so busy that she never asked him what he found out.

Derek's lips quirked only a little in confirmation. "She told me something that changed my perspective on a lot of things. She said that my family—our family—didn't just live in Beacon Hills. They protected it. This town needs someone to protect it; someone like you two."

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek. Lately, she hadn't been feeling like she could protect anyone. She didn't check on Derek and Isaac when they were marked by the Oni, she couldn't stop them from getting to Lydia. She couldn't help Stiles with frontotemporal dementia—she couldn't do anything. How the hell was she supposed to protect Beacon Hills?

"And someone like you to teach us a few trade secrets..." Scott smiled at Derek but it quickly faltered. He stood, his face full of recognition. "He was trying to protect us. Stiles was protecting us from himself."

"What are you talking about?" Olivia stood along with Derek, squeezing her hands together anxiously.

"When we were looking for you, I checked the hospital. I found Stiles' scent on the roof and his chemo signals told us that he was fighting something. We didn't know what it meant," Derek quickly explained.

"We need to go to the roof," Scott declared.

The three of them walked out of the waiting room, quick with determination. Olivia was still a little confused with what exactly was going on, though. She knew what chemo signals were, and how they affected one's scent, but she didn't know what Scott was inferring to when he said that Stiles was protecting them from himself.

Scott and Derek sped up as they got to the stairs heading to the roof, but as soon as Olivia took one step onto the first stair, her whole world slowed to a stop and became bright with purple.

Stiles, Stiles, Stiles...

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

She found herself in the same MRI room that Stiles was currently in, though he was sitting up and fully dressed. He was wearing a striped hoodie that looked familiar, though she knew he had never worn it before.

"Have you figured out my riddle yet?"

On the other side of the room was a man's figure, his head wrapped in dirty bandages. He wore some kind of military jacket, but it didn't seem recent by any means. He spoke with an accent, but Olivia couldn't make out what kind.

Stiles whipped around, glaring at the man with scared eyes.

"If you answer correctly, we might consider letting them go," the man paced closer to Stiles. From his close proximity, Olivia could see that he had sharp teeth poking out of the mouth hole of his bandages.

"Letting who go?" Stiles whispered shakily.

For a second, the man stared right at Olivia. It was strange because she knew she wasn't really there and Stiles obviously didn't know about her presence...so how could he see her? "Your friends, your family, your girlfriend. Everyone who ever meant something to you. We're going to destroy all of them, Stiles..."

Olivia's eyes stung as she bit the inside of her cheek, remembering a tidbit of what happened the night before. Stiles had been talking to himself, but it wasn't really him, was it? The Stiles that taunted her had told her that they were one. Was that why he now called them 'we'?

"One...by...one..."

"Why?"

It physically hurt Olivia to hear Stiles cry, but there wasn't anything she could do. The horror of the situation dawned on her, she couldn't do anything in the physical world—where she was probably still in the stairwell—or this world, which must have been Stiles' head, or something like that. She had to watch as this dark spirit—the Nogitsune, she finally realized—took Stiles and hurt him.

"Everyone has it," the Nogitsune whispered instead of answering. "but no one can lose it. What is it?"

Stiles scoffed, shaking his head in annoyance as the Nogitsune turned around. "I don't know."

"A shadow, Stiles." It was no use, he couldn't hear her.

"Everyone has it, but no one can lose it. What is it?"

"I don't know."

"Everyone has it, but no one can lose it!" the Nogitsune shouted, causing Stiles to rear away from him. Olivia watched, horrified, as it started to unravel its bandages; Stiles held his hands to his ears as he cried, trying to block out the screams. "What is it?! What is it?!"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Stiles screamed as the final bandage came undone.

Olivia gasped. Stiles' beautiful, perfect face was no longer just his. The Nogitsune stared back at her and Stiles with his face, smirking wickedly. Chills made their way across her body, she had never seen him smile that way before.

"What is it, Stiles?" the shadow-Stiles whispered one last time.

Stiles took his hands away from his ears and whipped around toward the Nogitsune. "A shadow."

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Olivia gasped as she came back to herself, purple bleeding away from her vision. She was still on the stairs, but Scott and Derek obviously hadn't noticed she had an episode, because they were no where to be seen. She had to tell them what she saw inside Stiles' head, she had to.

She started up the stairs once more, but quickly had to stop when loud clanging filled her head, giving her a horrible migraine.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Stiles is gone...Stiles, Stiles, Stiles...

Someone's going to die! Your pack is going to—

The power surged. Isaac's bright green tether lit up brightly, making her go blind for a second.

"ISAAC!"