Hi! So, I wanted to give a fair warning that the first few paragraphs of this chapter, Sage is just going to be referred to as "her" or "blonde" for the sole reason of it leading up to a higher purpose. Her name holds a lot of emotion in this chapter for Stiles, and the usage of common nouns for her is basically just leading up to the climatic moment where it's finally used through his own thoughts. Also, there are some scenes in this that aren't shown in Echo House, but were critical for this story, much like the very first scene. They follow the same plot, they're just off-script like the last two chapters have been. They eventually blend in with the episode, though, so don't worry! I'm extremely excited for this, and just know that the three minute group therapy scene ending up being two thousand words. This is the struggle I have with everything having to be detailed, and the reason I always have headaches when I finish a chapter.

Songs to listen to for this chapter: JUST PUT WORK SONG BY HOZIER ON REPEAT. Literally, I have such an extreme obsession with this man and this song, it's becoming unhealthy. The lyrics of the song go so well with Stage, though, so I had it on repeat the entire time I was writing this. I made a playlist for the entirety of Still on 8tracks.com, too. All of the details of my account will be at the bottom, along with the track list for people that don't have an 8tracks! Enjoy the chapter!

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FIFTY FIVE;

INDEFINITE DEGREE OF PAIN

Stiles Stilinski was having a panic attack. He knew that he was going to have one before he even began to feel as though his lungs were collapsing, all of the air that should have been entering into them suddenly evaporating into nothing as he stumbled to the closest wall that he could find for support. Everything was beginning to cave in, and the only thing that he could focus on was what sent him into the traumatic state. She was here. She was here. She wasn't supposed to be in this place. She wasn't supposed to even know that he was in this place. He made Scott and his father promise not to tell her anything. The one person that he had spent so many moments desperately trying to keep safe was, now, locked into the same institution as the person who unwillingly sentenced her to a painful, insufferable end. She wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be away from him. She was supposed to be safe. Stiles continued to let out gasps for air as the other residents of Eichen House stayed uncaring to the action, having seen it nearly every day.

Oliver, Stiles' roommate for the next seventy-two hours, had been the only one slightly concerned with the teenage boy's panic attack. The patient placed his hands together, lips pressed tightly against one another as he looked around to see if anyone would be coming to help Stiles. Nearly all of the orderlies were occupied with the strange, blonde girl and Malia, which meant that Oliver was stuck bending down cautiously next to the brunette boy. "You need to calm down. If they notice you panicking, they'll sedate you."

"I know her," Stiles choked out, placing one of his hands to his chest as he closed his eyes. He had to control his breathing. The teenage boy tried to focus on anything aside from the fact that the blonde girl had been taken away by the orderlies and he could do nothing to stop it. He had to focus on something that wasn't the aching fascination his lungs had of collapsing, but all of his thoughts were being clouded. Stiles clenched his jaw tightly, curling his hands at his sides. Immediately, he felt his nails digging into his hand, and remembered the one thing that she had said a month ago. Pain makes you human.

Oliver glanced down in confusion, wondering how Stiles knew the girl. He was completely unfazed with the blood that was beginning to build up under the boy's fingertips, more curious as to why the girl gave such a hazardous reaction. "But, you can't have visitors."

"I don't think she's here to see me," Stiles managed to answer, his breathing calming down enough for him to speak without straining. There was still a heavy movement in his chest, something that he knew wouldn't be going away anytime soon. He knew that she wouldn't be in this place to see him, and he wasn't holding out on the hope that she would. After what he did to her, Stiles knew that he was the very last person she wanted to see right now. That only meant that she was here for a different reason, and it had to be important. "She wouldn't be that stupid. Scott would never allow it."

Oliver watched with uncertain eyes as Stiles slowly raised himself from his sitting position on the ground, the boy making sure to keep his hands shut until he could make it into the bathroom to wash off the blood. "Who's Scott?"

"My best friend," Stiles answered with a heavy-weighing concern, glancing around the corridor of the place, looking for nothing in particular. He had to figure out a way to see her, or a way to contact his friends to find out why she was here and tell them to get her the hell out. No longer was his biggest problem his own health in this place, knowing the moment that he saw her that she just became his only focus. If he couldn't get himself out for another three days, he had to, at the very least, configure a plan that would get her out.

"Who's she?" Oliver asked, following Stiles like a lost child the moment that the frantic boy began to move back to the telephone as if they would get any better success the second time. The two of them had been there when the commotion between the blonde and Malia went on, Stiles having paused into an unsettling apprehension when he overheard one of the patient's conversations on a dead line. After Meredith walked off, and only after Oliver told him that the phones were cut off for twenty-four hours after a suicide, did he realize that a voice coming from a few feet away sounded too familiar for an immediate fear not to cascade down his spine.

Stiles stopped his hast movements the moment that the question was asked, his eyes stuck on the wall that was directly in front of him with arched shoulders. He could feel his stability literally sinking beneath the surface, trying so completely hard to keep himself composed when the reality was that he was seconds away from breaking down. There was a shadow of wetness under his eyes as he closed them, taking a few deep exhales to calm his raging nerves. If he let all of his emotions run on the adrenaline of seeing her, he would lose the slipping condition he already had with the Nogitsune inside of him at an accelerated rate. The single, simple question that had been so easy to answer with Scott only brought on a circulating amount of conflicted emotions when it was asked about Sage Connelly.

He didn't know what she was to him. He didn't know if he had the right to be anything to her. He didn't know if he wanted to be anything to her. For the entire week, he was being irrecoverably immersed in a suffocating guilt of knowing exactly what he did to her, and there was absolutely no words for him to describe how utterly disgusted he felt at himself. Despite Scott having spent hours trying to console his best friend that it wasn't his doing, Stiles was still responsible. He was still the one that had, only a few months ago, upheld the expectation to never once lay a hand on his ex-girlfriend only to completely obliterate everything about her in the most volatile of ways. He knew that, no matter how painful it had been for him when she broke up with him, it would never amount to the heartache that she was experiencing now. Stiles hadn't just emotionally broken every piece left of Sage, but he had broken every physical and capable piece left that she only let herself expose to people she loved. He had broken her trust. He had broken her hope. He had broken the weight that she held onto like an anchor. He had broken her heart in such an unnaturally dismembering way that he knew would never be repaired.

The worst part wasn't even the fact that he did it, or the fact that she had to live with the knowledge that the boy she loved blindly for a year had been capable of doing something so viciously. The worst part was that he enjoyed it. He enjoyed staring into her green eyes and watching as the intensity within them slowly died to an emptiness as he became whole. There was something so sickeningly wrong with that, something that was so incredibly repulsive, that Stiles realized he never wanted to have to be anything to Sage knowing he couldn't allow her to care for someone like that. He couldn't be that person for her anymore — the one that posed as the placement of a best friend and a boyfriend. He couldn't allow her to trust him again and misplace that to another indefinite degree of pain. The Stiles that she fell in love with, and the Stiles that loved her unconditionally with every piece of capability he had inside of him, had been left to drown in the cold water the night they were put in the barren, white room. There was no answer to when, or if, he would return.

"Someone that doesn't deserve to be in this place," Stiles answered, finally, after moments of silence. Sage was the last person that should be taking residency in this place. Despite the struggles that he knew she had been having with herself and her emotions lately, the blonde girl did not deserve to be in such a malicious place that kept the insane locked away. She was an innocent, no matter how much darkness that she had been unsheltered from. There was no guilt inside of her for killing someone, no evil that was threatening to break out in every vulnerable moment. She didn't deserve to be in this place. "Someone that never deserved to be hurt."

Yet, Stiles realized, she received both anyways.

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"I want to go back on the topic of guilt today." The words fell from Marin Morrell's mouth with such an ugly irony that it almost seemed to be on purpose, the woman speaking to everyone that was sitting in the group therapy. Had Stiles been given a choice, he wouldn't even be sitting in the chair right now, but the only thing that he had to keep in mind was that there was a fifty-fifty chance of Sage attending the same thing. The moment that he showed up, though, and everyone began to sit down, he realized that she wasn't there. A chair was across from him, absent of a person that should have been attended but, for some reason, didn't. Thinking about why they were delayed, thinking about the thought of it being Sage, had him sitting with his head low to try and block out the entire therapy session. There was already enough guilt resting inside of him, and he didn't need someone to try and coax out how he felt about it. "It's nice to see you joining the group, Sage."

"It's nice to see you acting like I had a choice, Marin." Stiles shot his head up at the sound of the blonde's name, his eyes immediately focusing on the teenage girl that had taken place on the unoccupied chair across from him and a few seats away from Malia. The worn expression that she had on her face was not what had him sitting up straight in his seat, or the bruising that was beginning develop near her mouth from the blow that the werecoyote gave. It wasn't even the discomfort he had of seeing her again for the first time since everything happened. The most triggering part about Sage was what she was currently stuck in; a white, straitjacket was wrapped tightly around the teenage girl's small body, suffocating her whole.

Stiles made a move to get up from his chair, ready to help the blonde without thinking through the consequences that he could face because of it, when her attention diverted from Morrell and settled directly on him. The green eyes that had always been so attentive to detail were shining with disapproval, and the small shake of her head was the only thing keeping him from continuing with his initial plan. That didn't ignore the feeling of being gutted from the inside out, Stiles growing nauseous at the sight of seeing the girl in the restraints. He knew that she didn't like being confined, and that she absolutely hated the feeling of closure, which only made his worry for her safety increase the longer that he watched her in it. Whatever she had done to piss off the orderly from earlier had clearly been enough for him to take such drastic measures, not only making the other patients in the room uncomfortable but Stiles and Morrell as well. It was obvious by the look in their psychiatrist's eyes that even she didn't approve of the new apparel.

Sage did not know who had caused her more pain that was sitting in the room. Marin Morrell had caused her a world of psychological, and, now, she was forced to sit in the same room as the woman, taking on the role of a patient once again. Being in her hands, having the knowledge of understanding that Morrell did everything she possibly could to exploit every weakness that a person had, was not something that she was ready to step back into. Malia Tate had created the physical pain, the entire right side of her face burning any time she gave any expression or spoke. There was undeniably an overwhelming amount of rage that the blonde had for the teenage girl, knowing that the brunette was the cause of Sage being in this place. All of her friends had saved the teenage girl, they had given her back the human life that supplied more possibilities than she had as a werecoyote, and the gratitude that she had been given in return was a bruising on her face and an ache that the nurses refused to give her medication for. Apparently, being a threat to society meant that the luxuries were only for those that the head orderly, who's name she found was Brunski, didn't hate with a passion.

Staring at Stiles Stilinski, for even those very few seconds, was what had given him the prize for who managed to cause the most pain because, while Morrell and Malia managed to inflict their own creations of harm, Stiles had perfected it all. The psychological torture that he put her through for an entire week, and even before that when he had gone missing, was not something that she would ever be able to forget. It had scraped away at her insides, leaving her with an emptiness that continued to grow hollower the longer that she invested herself into saving Stiles. The physical torture lingered when she took deep breaths, a heaviness in her heart that the doctor said would be there for a few weeks. The emotional dismemberment, the mental anguish, was the worst of it all. It was the worst part because Sage stared at Stiles, and she didn't know how she was supposed to feel. She didn't know why she shouldn't be curling her lip in disgust, or feeling a powerless amount of fear that made her want to be anywhere else. She didn't know why she still felt entitled, by being Sage Connelly, to help him. The only thing that she did know was that she felt the guilt surfacing because she was the one who fundamentally caused the entire ruination of the boy who had stopped her heart only days prior to their meet in a mental institution.

"Back to the topic that we were speaking of before, I want to re-invite all of you to a discussion about guilt. It might surprise you to hear me say that guilt is a good thing. It's a rather mature emotion," Morrell explained, keeping a steady eye on Stiles and Sage as she did so. The teenage boy had yet to remove his eyes away from the blonde, while the teenage girl was staring at the ground with such intensity it seemed impossible to break her gaze. The psychiatrist knew she wouldn't be getting anything from either of them at the moment, and turned to the person responsible for Sage's invitation to Eichen House. "Malia, you said something about guilt the other day. You said that it came with a visceral reaction."

"I said that it made me feel sick to my stomach," Malia corrected, reiterating the sentence in a way so that she could understand it. The werecoyote glanced to her left instinctively, feeling the same ill sensation sweep over her at the sight of Sage in the jacket. She knew that she was the cause, having watched the entire scene between the blonde and Brunski go down, but there was something about the girl that struck her as intrusive. Malia did not like Sage, and the teenage girl was already beginning to catch on that the feeling was mutual.

"Guilt often becomes physical. You feel it in your gut. It's not just psychological." Morrell's very own, degree-induced definition of guilt coincided with everything that Sage found herself feeling, and there was no doubt that Stiles was having the exact same experience. The teenage boy finally found himself looking away from the blonde when Oliver began coughing next to him, the action making Sage finally raise her head with mild uneasiness in her eyes. When he finally stopped, she fought to restrain herself from looking over at Stiles but broke it rather quickly. Instead of his eyes being trained on anything happening in the room, he was focusing all of his attention on something that was happening behind him. Sage was not the only one to notice. "How does guilt make you feel, Stiles?"

The blonde sat up straighter in her seat when Stiles turned his head to look over with disorientation, unable to make too much movement due to the jacket given the fact that it squeezed parts of her body that were beginning to grow numb. She had seen the look in his eyes before, and it was only when he was afraid. It was when he was unable to distinguish reality with a nightmare or a hallucination. She knew because she had worn the same look of disorientation for three weeks before it ended, and could only grow in wonder towards what he had been seeing that left such an impact on his emotional state in just a matter of seconds. His hands rubbed together with no end, trying their very hardest not to reach for his neck. Only when he was called out by Morrell did he return back to the discussion they were having. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Guilt. What does it make you feel?" Morrell repeated, the soothing tone that she possessed doing nothing to calm Stiles as he began to rub his hands hands more feverishly.

He couldn't think straight anymore, not when he could practically sense the Nogitsune lurking around every single corner, awaiting the moment that Stiles let himself slip and lost complete control. That would be the moment he became a futile piece of weaponry in the Nogitsune's enlarged plan to create as much chaos as possible, and that would be the moment that he completely loses himself to the darkest part of him that enjoyed it. Stiles refused to allow that, and tried to keep his attention on anything that wasn't the darkness waiting to slip through the seams. At first, he thought that his hands would supply him with enough distraction, but he noticed from the corner of his eye that the Nogitsune's bandaged body was appearing once again and snapped his head up from his hands and directly in front of him.

When he met with Sage's gaze, there was an absolute amount of shock when he noticed the concern she was showing. That had him swallowing hard, but he didn't look away as he finally managed to build up enough of a response for Morrell that consisted of a single word. "Nervous."

"Sage," Morrell called, making the teenage girl look away from Stiles and over to the woman. "I've had discussions with you before about guilt. I know that you've felt the emotion rather strongly, several times in your life, and I believe that sharing it with other people might bring a sense of self-awareness. How does it truly make you feel inside when you realize that you've done something that you may hold negatively in your conscience? Does it make you nervous, like Stiles?"

The blonde knew that the woman's question was indirectly suited around the subject of what happened with Stiles and found difficulty configuring up an answer that appropriately described how guilt made her feel. "I think people only feel nervous if what they've done can take a different approach, one that they can't predict the outcome of. I feel lost. I know that the guilt is going to catch up to me, and the consequences of it could leave me with nothing. If I feel guilty, I'll do everything possible to make sure that I fix what I broke. I've already lost too much to lose anything, or anyone, else over something that I caused."

Sage knew that her words had gotten to Stiles, and she knew because the veins that were prominently exposed from his short-sleeved shirt had grown tense. There wasn't any denying that what she said had been directly phrased for the situation that she was currently in, and that she needed to let the teenage boy in front of her know that she was just as much to blame for what happened to herself as he was. The blonde should have never given the Nogitsune the chance to take residency in either of their minds, and she definitely never should have allowed it to happen to Stiles. She knew that, even though their current relationship was the most distant of a connection one could have, she wasn't prepared to completely eradicate him from existence. Her own personal representation of hope had been taken off, and she didn't know if she was ever going to be in a position where she felt compelled to put it back on, but she hadn't thrown it away. There wasn't a thought in her mind that wanted to erase Stiles from her life completely, but what she needed was to be done with the brokenness that came with being so invested in loving him. She let her emotions get the better of her, and that was the reason she died for the second time. If there were ever a third, she had no doubt that her fate would be at the hands of her compassion. The will she had to do anything for anyone she loved.

"Like, a sense of urgency? You both feel an urgent need to make up for something you've done— to apologize. These are all healthy responses," Morrell comforted, well aware that the two she asked the questions to were barely interested in the conversation that she was trying to include them in. Stiles had returned his eyes to the floor again, trying desperately hard to block everything out, while Sage was vigilant about his actions. The roles had reversed, the woman realized. "Does anyone know what you call someone who doesn't experience guilt?"

The teenage boy who had been previously coughing from beside Stiles, Oliver, raised his hand with an answer already in mind. However, he was unsure about it, which left him adding a higher pitch at the end of his answer to play it off as a question. "Sociopath?"

"That's right, Oliver," Morrell praised, but there was a sudden lifelessness that took part in her, usually acute, tone. The woman had her eyes settled on the intricate placement of marks that were beginning to crawl their way up Stiles' neck, the observation giving Marin Morrell a single moment where she let the panic overwhelm her. Before she let it get out of hand, the psychiatrist intervened in the circumstance. "I'm sorry. We need to take a break. Stiles, Sage, would the two of you, please, come with me? I'd like to talk with both of you for a minute."

Sage and Stiles had another exchange of glances, this one not revolving around guilt but around bewilderment. Neither knew why both of them had to make an appearance in a conversation with Morrell, but they didn't press to further into the situation and both got up. The only hope that the blonde had left inside of her was that Morrell would actually have the audacity to take the jacket off of her before she completely lost her entire sense of control. She was already beginning to feel her patience with it wearing thin, the sense of being completely trapped and useless continuing to wreak havoc upon her any time she tried to get out from pure frustration. Somehow, though, Sage had a feeling that Morrell was going to supply them with a piece of information she left out this morning. And, already, Sage knew that she was not going to enjoy the answer being given.

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The moment that Sage and Stiles had followed Morrell into her office, a place that the blonde had been in only a few hours ago but felt like an eternity away, the woman was locking the door behind her. The reaction had set off a red flag inside of the teenage girl's head at first, but she figured that she would rather be locked inside of a place with Morrell opposed to having Brunski walk in on them at any moment. The psychiatrist was the lesser evil in the situation, and she could tell by the facial expression that washed over Stiles' features to her right that he had the same thought. However, that didn't dismiss the fact that Morrell still wanted to see them for a reason, one that was big enough that she felt the need to include them both and have it in such a private setting. The truth of the matter was that, even though Stiles and Sage were not on the best of terms and had every single reason in the world to want to avoid one another, they were in a place that forced them to stick together.

"As much fun as it's been being in this thing, do you think you can get me out of this?" Sage asked, shifting uncomfortably once again. Thankfully, she hadn't gotten to the point where she broke out screaming, knowing that it would only add fuel to the flame of the instability everyone in the institution thought she had. The last thing that she needed was to give Brunski more evidence to plea the case of her being harmful to those in public, but if she was in the straitjacket any longer, she knew that she was going to blow up.

Morrell glanced over at the blonde, and frowned deeply before walking over. Sage had a small fear that the woman wouldn't let her out, but when Morrell walked behind her and the blonde began to feel her loosening the straps in the back, an exhale of relief fell from her mouth. "I'll tell the orderlies that it's not safe for you to be it given the health situations you've recently experienced. They didn't have the jurisdiction to put one of these on you in the first place."

"I'm pretty sure they don't have the jurisdiction to do half of the things they do in this place," Sage replied, trying to keep her eyes off Stiles and on the wall as she waited for the upper part of her body to be released from the jacket. She didn't fail to notice the way he flinch when Morrell mentioned her health. When she felt the tight pressure created from the apparel suddenly disappear, Morrell moved to the front to help the blonde pull her arms free of the restraints. The moment that it was completely rid of her body, Sage raised her arms above her head to try and get feeling back into them. "As much as I wish we were in here because of everyone in this place's hatred for me, I know that we're not."

"Stiles, would you please lift the back of your shirt up?" Morrell asked politely, watching as the teenage boy gave the blonde next to him a look of caution. Sage didn't know what the necessary cause was, not until her eyes settled in on something that was beginning to show up on Stiles' neck from it's hidden place under his shirt. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and she was taking a step forward with her newly-freed hands to pull back the collar of his shirt to reveal a more prominent image of the bruised linings along the back of his neck. The close proximity between them was barely noticed by Sage, but Stiles' body grew tense, knowing that they hadn't been in such an intimate vicinity of one another since the night in the clinic. He didn't want to hurt her again. "It's a Lichtenberg figure. They appear on lightning strike victims. The fact that they are appearing on you after a shot of wolf lichen is both significant and strange."

Sage and Stiles both looked over at the woman, whereas the blonde's attention was focused on the markings and Stiles was focused on her. Both of them were plenty aware of Morrell's ability to make a situation seem more pleasant than it actually was, mainly due to the fact that Deaton did the exact same thing to them when something is proving to be a problem. Stiles was the one most concerned with her words, his eyebrows raising with a slight gleam of false hope in his eyes. "By significant and strange, do you mean hopeful and optimistic?"

When he didn't get a response, he knew that it was resting more along the lines of disastrous and lethal. His jaw clenched tightly and he took a step back from Sage, her hand falling from where it was placed on his neck when he did so. The teenage girl noticed the reaction that he had, followed then by her own understanding of why he did it. There was a difficulty in her mind of making the clear distinction that this was actually Stiles, unlike the entire day when the Nogitsune had played off the role of her ex-boyfriend perfectly. This was the teenage boy that felt remorse for his actions every time he looked at the blonde, something that she could tell was resting in his eyes the moment she saw him, and this was the teenage boy that she had to continuously remind to herself was not a threat. He was not the one that inflicted the damage on her, only his hands had created the disambiguate making of death. Stiles Stilinski was not capable of murder, and that was something Sage Connelly was still in a desperate attempt to accept and move on from.

"When the marks fade, the Nogitsune's grip over you will return," Morrell explained, turning around to face them after moving towards a cabinet full of medication. Immediately, their eyes moved to the bottle of pills that she had in her hands. From their point of view, it looked like she was giving Stiles medication for what he had been trying to prevent for four days.

Stiles took the pills that she placed into his hand. "What are these? Sleeping pills?"

"Amphetamines. Sleeping is exactly what you don't want to do. You're vulnerable when you're asleep." Morrell didn't seem to understand the longer Stiles stayed awake, the more out of tune he became with the world around him. He was barely capable of standing properly at this point, managing to get six hours of sleep in the past week with all of his thoughts revolving around the person standing next to him, his coach, Isaac, and all of the other people that had their lives put at risk by the thing that was threatening to break out of his grasp.

"So, all I have to do is stay awake?"

"For now," Morrell confirmed, just before she glanced over at Sage with apprehension in her eyes. It was the same look that the blonde got when the woman was refusing to tell her something earlier, and knew that the words that would come from Morrell's mouth next would not be something either teenager was ready to hear. "If your friends haven't figured something out by the time those marks are gone, I'll come find you."

Sage inched forward, crossing her arms over her chest. She could already tell that Morrell had another course of action for Stiles than what they were hoping to achieve, and considering she was the only one in this place that was even slightly capable of standing up for him when he was vulnerable, she knew that she had to intervene. "Find him to help him, or find him to do something else?"

"I would be giving him an injection," Morrell confessed, holding up a vial of blue substance that didn't look safe to be making entrance into a human. "Pancuronium Bromide. It causes respiratory paralysis."

Stiles gave a weary glance at the vial, trying to ignore how his hand clenched into a fist. He knew what a threat was, and he knew that Morrell had just given him one loud and clear. If he didn't stay awake, and if he became a threat to those in the world, she would not hesitate to kill him. "That sounds a lot like death."

"It's used for lethal injections, yes," Morrell said, her expression calm while her words were sharp in the tense air. It was obvious that she cared little for Stiles, whether that be from all of the trouble that the teenagers caused for her in the past or the fact that he was a walking, talking, catatonic time bomb waiting to blow, no one would know. The only thing that threaded through the strained conversation was Sage's tight shoulders, realizing that her heart had begun accelerating the moment that Morrell sided with the death penalty for Stiles all because of the Nogitsune.

Stiles felt his lip pulling back in frustration, his anger towards the woman's admission getting the better of him. "So, when the Nogitsune takes over, you're going to kill me?"

"I'm going to do what I've always done. Maintain the balance." Marin Morrell had a rather eccentric definition of maintaining balance, and the blonde that was standing next to Stiles knew that the woman was not bluffing by her warning to the teenage boy. If Stiles let the Nogitsune take over again, that would be the end. The Nogitsune, and Stiles, would only be a shadow of a memory hidden deep in the darkest parts of their minds, and Sage refused to allow that to happen. She was the one responsible for his undoing, and she had to be the one that fixed it.

"Your definition of maintaining balance sounds a lot like murder," Sage replied, a harsh insinuation seeping through her words as she looked at the woman with arched eyebrows. She had ended on positive terms with Morrell, or, at least, as positive of terms as the two could manage, but the psychiatrist was crossing a line that she didn't want to find a finish to. Mistakenly a monster or not, Stiles was still someone that she cared about. He was still a part of her pack, connected by her forgotten abilities or by the relationship they had with one another, she wasn't going to allow Morrell to end his life as if the rest of his means were nothing. The Nogitsune didn't have to corrupt everything that Stiles had. Not everything. "How do we know that the moment something happens to Stiles, the Nogitsune won't go after someone else? It's already gotten to me. What's stopping it from doing the same thing again?"

Morrell looked at Sage, no indication of worry in her eyes about Sage's wonder. "You're of no use to the Nogitsune now that everything that created you is gone. Being an altor made you as vulnerable to it's possession as falling asleep makes Stiles. Your abilities were it's only interest, and it already took that. There's nothing left of you that it would want to have."

"Should I be offended or grateful?" Sage found herself asking, an involuntary question that was slipping through her mouth given her inability to use a filter. The look that she received from Morrell clearly stated that she should be as thankful as possible for the fact that she was no longer an interest to the Nogitsune, but the blonde only felt worse than she had before she stepped into the room. If the Nogitsune no longer took interest in her, that meant that there was no way for her to allow it to take her instead of Stiles. She couldn't give it a compromise, to take herself in exchange for him, an idea that had been surfacing inside of her head the longer that Morrell spoke to the teenage boy about his possible end.

"The two of you need to stay together as often as possible," Morrell ordered, her eyes darting between the former couple with a stern composure lifting on her face. Sage wasn't completely sure if the woman just found humor in knowing that she was placing the couple in a situation that could end much more disastrous than if the Nogitsune actually came out, but didn't say anything more. "Stiles, Sage is the only person in this place that will be able to monitor you when I cannot. You need to keep an eye on those marks."

Morrell's demand to keep the two together quickly resurfaced the emotions that the two of them had put on pause during their talk, Sage and Stiles both going back into the remembrance of why it seemed absolutely impossible for them to stay together for seventy-two hours when they had only been near each other for twenty minutes and it was already beginning to damage their hearts to a lethal degree. Stiles had been adamant on getting her out Eichen House, and now that Morrell had assigned her with the task of being his babysitter, he was well aware that the stubborn disposition she wavered off her fragile body would be reluctant to leave. He had seen it before when Sage helped Aiden, the cold-hearted emotions that she set to stone faltering when someone that she cared about was placed in an imminent threat. That had been the weakness that the Nogitsune used against her, and that was the reason Stiles held tightly onto the guilt of understanding that he could have killed the girl he loved — that he had killed the girl he loved, if only for a minute and thirty eight seconds, and he ripped a part of her identity away from her that he knew was all she had left of her life as a Connelly.

While Stiles was suffering in his culpability, Sage was suffering in her indifference. Something had changed inside of her the moment that she woke up, and she spent so many restless hours holding onto the belief that she wouldn't be able to face Stiles because of what happened, but when she saw him again, all she felt was her own guilt. Every single one of her friends had set her into a position where they let her accept that it was perfectly normal to be repulsed by Stiles, that being the main reason why they didn't encourage her to see the teenage boy. What they didn't let her accept was the the fact that she should have been repulsed at herself. Scott, Isaac, Deaton, Derek, each of them had her convinced that she had every right to want to be completely finished with anything that had to do with this fight the Nogitsune created. The actuality was that she couldn't be finished yet. She created the monster living inside of the boy who, literally, broke her heart, and she had to be the one there to fix it, no matter how much it hurt her in the process of doing so. They were both just broken echoes trying to care for something, for a love, that they no longer had the will to even understand.

Stiles cleared his throat, sending a sideways look Sage's way to let her know that it was time to leave. Turning to look at Morrell, he sent her an discomforted, false smile. "Okay, then. I've missed our talks. Thanks for the illicit drugs."

The teenage boy turned away from Morrell, not bothering to wait for Sage to follow behind him. He knew that she had to watch over him, but that didn't make the grim feeling inside of his stomach disperse in any way. Stiles still held true onto the idea that he would, once again, injure the blonde in a way that she wouldn't recover from. There was a difficulty to grasp a stable hold of what he did to her the first time, and if there were to ever come a point where the Nogitsune succeeded in the plan of executing Sage with the ferocious desire it had already shown, Stiles knew he wouldn't survive the fallout. He wouldn't be able to live knowing that he couldn't protect the one person that he swore to hold onto until his arms were broken from the gruesomely agonizing pain. If he was responsible for the death of Sage Connelly, living with that colossal damage would lead him to his own demise. He knew it, too, and that was why he couldn't let himself get too close to hurt her again.

"Stiles," Morrell called out, the teenage boy's name sticking to the walls of Eichen House with a broken glimmer. Stiles didn't turn around, just moved his head slightly to the left so that she would know he was listening to what she had to say. The psychiatrist's next two words secured the realism that the Nogitsune was already beginning to win the war that it created beneath Stiles' skin. "Stay awake."

The teenage boy tried to ignore the clawing parasite that was inside of him, and he tried to ignore the fact that his eyes were growing wet with such frustration towards the fact that he could do absolutely nothing to prevent his fate. He could stay awake for now, but he didn't know how long he could last without closing his eyes. He didn't know how long it would before he was relieved of the pressure that was threatening to collapse his lungs every second, a panic attack ready to send him to his knees any time the situation he was in got the better of him. The Nogitsune was winning, and Stiles knew it. What was even worse is the fact that Stiles, throughout it all, could feel that a small part of him, the smallest of sections, wanted the Nogitsune to win. That thought was what terrified him to no end.

Stiles was quick to leave Morrell's office, moving through the outside corridor with a pace that Sage was trying to match from a few inches behind him. She could see that Morrell had managed to get to him, something that she was exceptional at doing considering the blonde had been in the same place as her ex-boyfriend only a few hours ago. The slight difference was the fact that the psychiatrist had gotten to her by using her will for her friends against her, and she had used Stiles' conscience against him. It was clear to see that the brunette boy was suffocating in his thoughts, something that Sage understood better than anyone else that was in the institution. Instead of running away from Stiles like she had imagined herself doing on more than one occasion, Sage was running directly to him with the only thought of his safety in mind.

"I'm not going to keep chasing after you," Sage finally announced after a few seconds of trying to keep up with him. Stiles' back arched at her statement, the words being enough for him to stop his attempt to get as far away from her as possible. The blonde let out a sigh in exhaustion, slowing down her pace so that she was meeting up with his paused posture in the middle of an empty hallway. This would be the first time that she talked to him alone, and it was something that she needed for closure. So, as she stood behind him, the teenage boy giving her the same cold shoulder that he gave Morrell, Sage found herself asking the one question that had been nagging her since the beginning, the delicacy of her voice so fragile that Stiles was afraid he would break her even more. "Stiles, what are you doing in this place?"

"When I woke up, I didn't need anyone to tell me what happened to you because I remembered it. I could just remember your face so clear inside of my head, and the way that you looked at me was the way that you looked at Peter," Stiles began to explain, and Sage watched as he turned around to face her. The expression that was contorted on his face had her heart lurching into her throat, noticing the tears that were beginning to build up under his eyelids. "It was the way you looked at Deucalion, and I sat there for hours with that image stuck permanently in my mind. There was a split second, Sage, where I became a monster to you, and I couldn't give anyone else a reason to look at me the way that you did. Being in here was the only way to keep you and everyone else safe from me."

Sage had expected to hear that answer, but it hadn't made the circumstance that they were in any easier. "You're not the one killing people, Stiles."

"Look at me and say that again," Stiles said, a hostility within him that he hadn't intended to let slip through his words. He noticed the lack of eye contact that she was giving him, the discomfort that she had about being alone with him evident the moment that she understood that chasing after him would lead her to a scenery that left her vulnerable with the same hands that took everything from her. When they were with Morrell, Sage was secure. When they were in the group therapy, she was sheltered. Now, she was alone with him. "You need to stop digging yourself deeper into this idea that you can help me, Sage. For once in your life, just be selfish and let me figure out how to do this myself. Stop hurting yourself by trying to make me better."

Stiles could tell that he was getting under his ex-girlfriend's skin, knowing exactly what he had to say to push her away so that she wouldn't help him. The most evident weakness that the blonde would always have is her heart, and how willing that she was to do anything for anyone that needed it despite what they might have done to her in the past. She didn't have boundaries, and she let her morals slip through the fear and frustration that she should be directing his way. There was a blind spot when it came to people she loved, an action that he had seen too many times before. The only way to ensure the safety of the teenage girl was the make sure that Sage Connelly understood that compassion is what got her in the hospital. The standards that she held high as an altor, that she had to be the one to protect her pack, were what ultimately destroyed that part of herself. Now, she was just human. Humanity could be exploited like a weapon, and all of the emotions that the blonde shut away as a supernatural creature could not be hidden now.

"You noticed," Sage said. The sentence had Stiles furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, unaware of what she was talking about. When the teenage girl caught on that he truly had no idea what she was referencing, and how those two words had been shifting around in her mind of guilt, she explained herself in further detail. "When the Nogitsune was inside of me, you noticed. You noticed that something was different about me."

Stiles was slightly taken back by her statement, never having really thought about the night when he noticed that something was different about Sage. Now, remembering back to that night, the teenage boy understood that the Nogitsune was still fit to make mistakes. Sage's personality had been the biggest one it made, and it didn't take five minutes with her for Stiles to notice. "You said that you missed me."

"Maybe, I did," the blonde replied, crossing her arms over her chest to try and reason with his claim. She was genuinely surprised at the small smile that showed up on the face of the boy in front of her, an act that she never thought she would see given the way that their conversation was straying. Sage was leaning more towards a scowl, or a frown, but what he gave her in return was the exact opposite.

"You don't admit how you feel to anyone, Sage. You just leave us with this infuriating job of wondering if you're sad, or if you're mad, or if there's something wrong that you refuse to talk about; and, you don't even realize that you do it. You have these trust issues that convince someone that you're a terrible person, but the moment that you let them in, they become your entire world. The Nogitsune thought that it knew everything about you, but it only knew the way that you used to be. It thought you were weak. It thought that no one would pay attention to any of these details because they were little things that normal people don't pick up on. You wouldn't admit that you missed me, Sage, and even if you did, or even if you do, what the Nogitsune did to me wouldn't change. You've got to stop blaming yourself for being the cause of this. The Nogitsune took me because I knew too much about you, and I wouldn't want to change that. I would rather live with this thing inside of me, with the guilt and the remorse, than have continued to pretend I didn't notice how you changed. Noticing meant that I knew you, and I don't want to forget that still I do."

Stiles saw the tears before she felt them. He saw the way that her jaw jutted out and the way that she turned her head to the right in an attempt to prevent him from seeing her cry. The teenage boy payed attention to the details about her, and even to this day when he could no longer be her boyfriend, he still payed attention. He knew that she would wipe away her tears before she completely allowed herself to break down, the refusal that she had towards her emotions always something that aggravated Stiles immensely. He knew that she would pretend he hadn't seen her slip up over his words, and that she would convince herself that he only noticed these things because they were together so often.

The actuality hadn't been in that reasoning, but because Stiles had spent an entire year falling in love with her day by day, and he spent countless hours trying to understand everything about her because she was his own, personal case to solve. Her heart had always been hidden deep within her chest, and Sage refused to believe that anyone had the chance of reaching it. She loved people blindly, she cared too much about those that sacrificed themselves to evil every day, and she held a complexity inside of her head that she had to be the one there at all hours of every day, the rulings of why she needed to be there coming after their pain had ended.

Stiles realized that his attempt to keep her safe had failed, and it was not because of his hands this time, it was because of his heart. He fell in love with a girl who's heart he ultimately broke, and finally understood why they would never work— why she had been so adamant on stopping their relationship before they got too invested. Those with the type of hearts they possess, the ones that find themselves falling endlessly and hopelessly in love until it consumed every part of them, never make it to the end of the Happily Ever After. "So, yeah. I noticed."

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HELLO, AGAIN. I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON. I probably deserve a thousand punches to the face by Malia at this point, but Stage! I didn't realize how much I missed writing scenes between Stiles and Sage, especially since there hasn't been an actual scene between the two that wasn't interrupted by deaths or MRI's, or anything like that in, at least, five chapters. Now, starting all the way back up at the beginning and filing through to the end, I wanted to show the character development that they both had in this chapter. All of Stiles' thoughts had revolved around his ultimate panic of knowing that he could be in that position again where he hurt Sage, and it was the reason that he was at such a loss for communication (and the panic attack) at first. He knew that the darkest part of him enjoyed the idea of watching the girl that he loved die right in front of him, and that wasn't something he wanted to accidentally fall back into. His feelings of guilt were about what he had done to her, and the realism that he liked it.

All of Sage's thoughts had revolved around the indifference of seeing Stiles again. I wanted to make sure that her biggest weakness, which is her compassion, was shown throughout the past few chapters. Even despite what happened with Stiles, she still feels that obligation to protect him and figure out a way to keep him from the death penalty that Morrell threatened him with. I know that people are going to be confused by her actions, especially since she took off the ring, but I want to make sure that everyone is aware of something: even when someone does something that ruins a part of you, and even when you lose trust and hope in who they are, that person is always going to mean something to you. Sage has too much history with Stiles to just allow him to suffer in Eichen House. She's the only one there for him, and he's the only one there for her at this point. The only problem that she's having is accepting the reality that the relationship she had with Stiles even before the Nogitsune had always been strained, and she's going to have to realize that she's going to have to let Stiles in before she can completely move on, or get back together with him.

I really hope you guys liked this chapter. I'm always nervous that I'm going to do something that you won't enjoy. But, there was such an absolutely amazing response to the title change, and I just want to thank all of you so much for the support. Of course, this chapter is more revolved around her relationship with Stiles, but the past few chapters before this one have been more about Sage's discovery of her own problems, and each of you stuck with her through all of it. Thank you for that, and I'm eternally grateful. I know this author's note is long, so I'm just going to post the songs from the mix for this book that I created. If you want to hear them, you can go to this link: ( http://8tracks.com/vividparacosm/still-book-two) to hear it!

— Still by Daughter, Into Your Arms by The Maine, Painting Flowers by All Time Low, I Don't Wanna Be In Love by Dark Waves, Hold Me Down by Halsey, Six Degrees of Separation by The Script, I'd Love to Change the World (Matstubs Remix) by Jetta, Battle Scars ft. Lupe Fiasco by Guy Sebastian, There's a Ghost by Fleurie, Right Here by Ashes Remain, Seven Nation Army (Cover) by Melanie Martinez, Before the Worst by The Script, Hold My Hand by The Fray, Gone Away by Safetysuit, Work Song by Hozier, Blind by Lifehouse, Drowning by BANKS, Search and Destroy by Sanders Bohlke, Love by Daughter, Heart by The Pretty Reckless, Coming Down by Halsey, and Where the Story Ends by The Fray.