After what felt like both minutes and hours, the screaming started.

It was hard to tell how much time she'd spent in the strange train station, because time seemed to have a different meaning. Sometimes it felt like she'd been there just hours, and other moments it was as if she'd been stuck there with her brother for years. When she'd asked stiles the first time, he'd been in the same boat as herself.

No idea.

But to her it seemed that the more she thought about the people she loved — Scott and Lydia, her Dad, Liam and Mason, Malia — it made her feel more grounded and more part of the present world. But the longer she went without thinking about them, she found it was easier to accept what had happened; that the people who mattered most to her didn't remember she'd ever existed.

In those moments, however, that she forgot Katherine Stilinski had existed as well. Some days she couldn't recall what her bedroom had looked like, her favourite colour, or what job she planned to get once she'd finished with school. But the most chilling experience was when for a good chunk of time, she hadn't been able to remember her own name.

Stiles had spent what felt like hours with her, brainstorming to figure out what it was because he couldn't think of it either. They'd sat against the same wall they had when she'd first woken up from her trance-like to him calling her name, and gone through every possible name that sounded fitting; Kathleen, Katrina, Katie, Kristen, Kenna.

She'd cried when she remembered it was Katherine, and had then gone on to think about the people in her life at every opportunity she had. But mostly, she thought about Liam.

She'd already asked Stiles about it. Her exact wording had been can humans have anchors too?

He hadn't even looked at her. Liam?

Yeah.

Katherine was pulled out of her thoughts and froze at the sound of horses and whips cracking due to flashbacks of her past encounter with the hunt, only to have Stiles haul her as far away from the loading platform as possible and shove her under one of the benches. Him and Peter hovered just out from under the bench but still beside her soon after. "This place is really starting to fill up," Peter commented softly.

She just plugged her ears to drown out the sound of magical gunshots being fired.

"Wait a second...that girl, I know that girl," Stiles uttered out. She forced herself to look up and follow his gaze to a girl with light brown skin and curly hair wearing a BHSS lacrosse uniform that was clinging to a younger, similar-looking girl. "Her name is Gwen. She plays lacrosse." Several gunshots rounded off, sending green smoke into the air, and she flinched. "How long has this been going on?"

"This isn't a train station, this is a way station," she heard Peter heave out. "It's not gonna stop."

"What is it?" Katherine choked out after following his gaze up to the destination boards mounted up on the wall. "What are those places?" Her entire body was trembling, and it took everything in her to force it aside.

"Bannack? Canaan? I know you know something," Stiles finished for her."

"We gotta get out of here," Peter whispered so softly she almost didn't hear him. "Nobody is safe."

"Yeah, in here!"

"In Beacon Hills," he snapped frantically at Stiles. "Your friends, your family, everyone. You've gotta go. They're gonna be taken." Then he tore away from the bench and back towards the loading platform.

"Where are you going?" Katherine hissed after him, having successfully forced her panic down.

Her and Stiles followed hastily after him, trying to draw as little attention to themselves as was possible as they walked up the tracks in a direction the two of them seemed to know already. "What did you see up there? The towns. What did it mean?"

"I just told you! They're never gonna stop."

"Okay," Katherine whispered shakily, rolling her lips inwards. "So what's the plan then?"

"I'm going through the portal," Peter answered as if it should've been obvious.

Katherine stared up at him wide-eyed. "There's a fucking portal? You're kidding me, right? I mean I know you're not but please say you're kidding."

"No one gets through the portal, you said that yourself," Stiles frowned as he nervously glanced behind them.

Peter smiled sarcastically. "No human can. But I'm better than human, remember? I'll heal." Then he rolled his eyes. "Let's not have a moment."

"If you survive, you have to find our friends for me, okay?" Stiles ignored him, bottom lip quivering the slightest bit. "You have to tell them about us 'cause they're not gonna remember us, so you have to tell them that we're here."

"When I survive, I'm going to get as far away from Beacon Hills as I possibly can," Peter snapped, his voice cruelly sarcastic as it always was. "And if I happen along one of your below average friends and it doesn't inconvenience me, I might mention your name."

He patted them both on the shoulder patronizingly, but Stiles wasn't having it. "Oh yeah, what about Malia?" She watched as Peter froze, but only for a second. "I know you're doing this for her," he continued on. "You're risking being incinerated for her. And I'm okay with that."

An eerie neighing sound flooded the tunnel and chilled her to the bone. "Stiles," Peter murmured, determined. "Stall them."

"W-what? How?" He spluttered.

Peter smiled faintly at them both, which she found mildly unsettling. "Use your head."

Then he was up on the loading platform.

After a moment of though Stiles was hauling her up as well, and the two of them used all their strength to shove one of the benched out onto the track so it would hopefully be in the way.

Her heart hammered rapidly in her chest as hooves and neighs drew closer and closer until the first rider appeared from the mouth of the tunnel and stopped in brief confusion at the bench. Peter used that time to jump on to the back of the horse as it began running again, and she screwed her eyes shut and clung tightly to Stiles, only to have something solid wrap around her neck and yank her back down onto the tracks, then released her.

She was assuming it was one of the Riders whips.

Before she could even think about standing up, even thinking about whether or not she was still actually breathing, Stiles landed on her legs making her groan.

In the time it took her to get him off her and open her eyes, the riders and Peter were gone, and everything around them had fallen silent again. "Did he make it? Stiles? I couldn't see, did he—"

"—He did," Stiles heaved out.

He helped her up onto her trembling feet, and as she stared at the end of the tracks she couldn't help but think of what Liam was doing right now...if the others even knew she had existed in the first place. "Do you think they miss us?" She asked her brother softly, lips rolled inward to keep the bottom one from trembling. "Do you think they've even remembered us? That we were there?"

Stiles pulled her into him and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, holding her tightly. "I hope so...actually, let's go find out."

With that they were walking through the now completely calm train station, where everyone was back in their seats as if nothing had even happened in the first place, and she watched as Stiles paused to stare up at the train arrival and departure board up on the wall, murmuring to himself as he slowly started moving again. She vaguely processed two of the names, Canaan and Boneville, but couldn't understand what what they meant. Her attention was on the big white block letters that read BEACON HILLS.

Nausea flooded her body and she cringed. Katherine clung to his hand still, not wanting to let him out of her sight now that she knew he actually really truly was real, and a part of her was still afraid that something would take him away again.

Then with a simple tug, she was following him back into the communications room. It was still just as dusty as it had been, but without Peter's irritating complaints it felt vaguely hollow. The air smelled musty and stagnant, as if they were the only people to have been in that room in fuck.-only-knows-how-long which was probably the truth.

She waited anxiously beside him again as Stiles started his fiddling with the controls and switches and dials again, her hands trembling and heart hammering nervously. She listened as radio static filled the room again, and then slowly grew louder at the twist of a large black knob on the control desk.

Immediately, her heart lurched with hope.

"Hello?" He blurted out into the microphone, and she surged onto the empty spot on the desk beside it. "Can anyone hear me?"

There was a long pause and as the hope slowly began to dwindle away, a female voice spoke over the static and her eyes flooded with tears. "Stiles?

Lydia.

"Oh my god," Katherine whispered, trembling hands rising up and covering her mouth.

"Stiles, are you there?" A frantic male voice asked.

The tears spilled over and she buried her face in her brothers shoulder as she slowly began sobbing because yes, they did remember them; just like she knew they would. "Scott? Lydia?" She croaked out, wiping her eyes frantically. "Is that you?"

She heard a sharp inhale, but couldn't pinpoint who it was from. "Oh, my god, Stiles? Katherine? We can hear you."

"Oh...my god, you know me? Us? You know us? You remember us?" Stiles choked out. He was gripping her hand hard now, hard enough that she slowly lost feeling in her fingers. But she was too relieved to care.

She sniffed harshly and wiped her nose on the back of her hand so she wouldn't get snot everywhere, and she only clung to her brother with equal fervor.

"Stiles, is thi... is this you? Is this actually you?" Lydia panted out again, sounding so utterly relieved she could cry.

"Yeah. Listen to me," he choked out, smoothing his fingers through her hair so it wouldn't cling to her teary cheeks. "Do you remember the last thing I said to you?"

There was a moment of pause as Lydia thought bout it, and Katherine wanted to burst into tears all over again, but she couldn't. She didn't know how much time they'd have to talk, and she had something she wanted to say before they were separated again. "You said... you said, remember I love you."

Immediately, Stiles' head dropped down to her shoulder in relief. Clearly, he hadn't believed in this whole experience as much as she had. Katherine rubbed his back soothingly as he exhaled a breath of sheer relief into the fabric of her shirt.

"Are you okay? Where are you? We're comin' to get you."

"No, no you can't — Scott — Liam — is Liam okay? And Hayden?" Katherine shook her head rapidly in protest of his promise, her tangled hair flying every which possible way.

Her heart ached with both guilt and longing as she thought about how she'd said goodbye to him, and the idea of him having no idea she'd ever even existed hurt a whole lot more than she ever thought it would.

Scott didn't answer her for a moment. "He's...he's more or less in the same boat you were when you lost Stiles," he answered slowly as the memory came back to him. "He barely slept or ate for days and he didn't know what was wrong...none of us did. But it...it's all starting to make sense now."

She wiped her eyes frantically and sniffed loudly again. "Tell him I'm sorry and that I miss him, okay?" She choked out unevenly. "And tell Hayden I'm...tell her I'm so so unbelievably sorry."

The connection began to flicker in and out as she spoke, so she shut up because she knew Stiles had a point to make. "Like KitKat said, you'll never find her," he agreed while still holding her tightly in his grasp. "Just remember this; Canaan, okay? You have to find Canaan. Just find Canaan."

Before Scott and Lydia had the chance to respond the connection in the room cut out, and it was filled with static before dying entirely. Katherine stared down at the silent machine with wide brown eyes, willing it to start working again, but it didn't." Do you think it went through?" She whispered out weakly.

Stiles kissed her forehead and rubbed her arms. "I hope so."