Since there was a positive reaction to adding this in the last chapter, I'm just going to give you guys a short list of songs that I was either listening to while writing, or think go well with the mood of the story. I highly, highly recommend playing them if you read this because there some of the songs that are most related to Sage's personality and character development. Songs to listen to while reading this chapter: Search and Destroy by Sanders Bohlke, There's a Ghost by Fleurie, Someone Told Me by Jake Bugg, Work Song by Hozier, Finding North by The Civil Wars, BTSK by MS MR, and The Woods by Daughter.

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FIFTY FOUR;

PORCELAIN CREATIONS

"Mallory, you have a visitor."

The woman's head immediately shot up at the sound of her name being called, arms wrapped tightly around each other with little chance of escape. It had been nearly a month since the last time she had anyone come to see her, and in that time, her mental state continued to dissolve rapidly. It was a rather uncommon sight to see someone voluntarily come to Eichen House to visit her of all people, especially considering everyone who ever knew who she was believed she was dead. Mallory's startled expression only further raised when she noticed a young, teenage girl standing in the door frame of the cracked foundation. Her hair and clothes were wet, a result of the pouring rain outside, but there wasn't a slight shiver in her posture to suggest she was cold. Instead, the teenager was standing stiff. Hard, even. There was unarguably no place that Sage Connelly wouldn't rather be.

Sage realized when she saw her mother for the second time in seven years that it didn't hurt as much. She wasn't sure if it was because she had lost most of her ability to care about the woman, or because the exhaustion was beginning to wear her thin the longer that she stood standing. It had been a consistent battle to keep her feet steady on the ground ever since she got out of the hospital earlier that day, having spent nearly a week trying to convince her doctor that spending her time stuck in a bed would drive her insane faster than her thoughts about the situation would. The moment that they discharged her, she went to the one place she knew would supply the answers that Deaton and the others were incapable of providing. She knew that her mother was the only person alive to tell her what happened. Schizophrenia or not, Mallory Connelly was the only other known altor druid in Beacon Hills. She was also the only one who could give Sage an explanation why her abilities as a druid had disappeared into thin air the moment she miraculously woke up from the dead.

The same orderly from last time had created a barrier between herself and her mother. Although, by the look on his face, she wasn't expecting for him to jump to her rescue if Mallory decided to lung for her neck again. It looked like they were already prepared for surprises, though, by the way her mother leaned to her right side more than staying balanced. They had to have drugged her with something, which had sent an uncomfortable chill down Sage's spine. She just hoped that the medication wouldn't effect the, already lacking, capability her mother had of sticking to the appropriate subject. The last thing she needed today was for this visit to be a waste, leaving her walking out with no answers and a heavy heart of disappointment.

"Who are you?" Mallory asked, her eyes narrowing in distrust as she stared at the teenage girl. It was almost gutwrenching to know that the woman had no idea that her daughter was alive and well, sitting directly in front of her, with her own world of aching issues. Sage had already promised herself the first time she saw her mother that she wouldn't expose her identity, knowing that she didn't need to have confirmation on whether or not the woman would even care in the slightest. The only thing that it would change is the way that her mother looked at her, and the blonde was perfectly fine with the expressions of distrust and oblivion.

Sage took a few cautious steps forward, inching towards the seat that was across from Mallory. The woman kept her eyes on every movement that the teenage girl made, but there was no indication that she was going to jump up and try to kill her, which was already proving to be a good sign. "I was a friend of your daughter, remember? I came to visit you a few weeks back."

"Sage?" The woman asked, her eyes softening as she stared at the young girl in front of her. Sage couldn't help but let her muscles tense, knowing that her mother was acknowledging her sentence as opposed to the person sitting in front of her. It didn't change the fact that it still stung to hear Mallory effortlessly pronounce her name as if it wasn't a mistakenly disruptive title for a corrupted teenager.

The blonde nodded once, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. "Yes. Sage. Mallory, I need to ask you a question about an altor's abilities. Do you think you can answer them honestly for me?"

Much like the last time Sage brought up their supernatural being, her mother's eyes gazed off for a few seconds as if it were a trigger to a past she desperately tried to claw her away out of. The action had Sage clenching her jaw tightly, her patience on a very thin line when it came to getting answers. She had to figure out what the Nogitsune took from her, and she had to figure out a way to get it back. Her abilities had been the only thing keeping her from being completely human, and without them, she felt vulnerable. She felt weak, and when she was weak, she made mistakes. Those mistakes, no matter how often they happened, always got someone killed. Sage wouldn't be able to live knowing that she was completely numb to losing someone that she loved because, no matter how much agony she might feel during the events, it would be nothing compared to knowing they were completely alone in that cold state. She had always been there with her friends, and now, the only thing she was continuing to prove being was collateral damage to a situation much larger than she could handle.

"Abominations," Mallory deadpanned with a small voice, her eyes still glued to the wall behind Sage's head with little knowledge that she was actually speaking. The single word caught her daughter's interest, though, sitting up straighter in her seat with a hard look on her face. "Altors are abominations. They weren't created for good. They weren't created for evil. They were created to exist, and existing as an altor was not existing. It was hoping to die, and not having the will to actually do it. It was hoping to stay alive, and never finding out how to actually live. It was hoping to stay human, but placed in a situation that forced us to kill. Altors are not meant for this world. Abominations."

The woman finally turned her attention away from the wall, her final word falling from her mouth the moment that she made eye contact with Sage. The reaction that she got from her daughter was pure, traceable pain, unknowing to the fact that the teenage girl was already well aware of her place in the world. It didn't change the fact that Mallory's explanation still bit at an open wound inside of Sage, and that her words only cemented the deep reality that her species would never fit in with an appropriate category. An altor was much like a Kanima, but instead of killing for vengeance, an altor just let themselves be killed. This was a reality that all of them would have to eventually face — that, it was never kill or be killed. It was accepting the fact that, as abominations, the scale would only tip on the way to destruction and they would always fall victim.

"Can their abilities be taken away?" Sage asked, her hands moving from their place in the pockets of her jacket to the table, desperate to receive an answer. Her mother had stuck to the topic much longer than expected, and she had to find some way not to lose the woman like she had last time. There was only one shot at this, and it had to be taken before someone else fell victim to the Nogitsune's power. She knew that her life had only been given back to her by a miracle, and the next person would not be so lucky.

Mallory's eyebrows furred, shaking her head a few times as though the question brought an incessant tick inside of her brain. Then, her eyes widened and she raised her head to stare at her daughter. "Only by death."

"Is there anywhere I can find more information about altors?" Sage tried to pry any sort of information that she possibly could out of her mother before it was too late, hoping that there was something that could give her answers that wasn't a schizophrenic, mental patient or a very limited bestiary. That had originally been her first place to check, but there was a lack of information on her species in the book. The most she got from it was that an altor can eventually develop abilities further beneath their constant state, and that had been the exact opposite of what happened to Sage.

Mallory leaned in closer to the blonde, making sure that her words were low enough that the orderly standing watch over the visitation couldn't hear her next words. "The basement has everything."

The woman moved away again, returning to her original position with a heavy-hanged contortion on her face from the medication they put into her system before. Sage felt her hope plummet to the deepest depths of the earth, knowing very well that she wouldn't be able to access anything that they had in the basement given the fact that she barely had access in the visitation room. There was no way that she had even the slightest of chances of reading anything that the basement kept on altors, and that sent her into a limitless level of emotional grief. The one possible lead that she had to actually get more answers had rapidly declined the moment her mother burst it into ashes and dust of broken desperation.

Sage let out a sigh, raising her hands so that she could rub her eyes. She was sure that they were swollen from the lack of sleep, and the fact that she spent the last four days refusing to cry over what happened. The teenage girl refused to let herself break because of what happened. All she could do was move on and figure out a way to fix what happened. In doing this, she had done a valiant job at avoiding Stiles Stilinski. Scott had finally told her what happened in those final few moments at the clinic, and how Deaton had managed to poison the Nogitsune with wolf lichen. It didn't change what happened, though. It didn't change the fact that she still let herself believe she could save Stiles when the only thing it got her in the process was a still heartbeat. That was all she had been given, and she couldn't let herself come so vulnerable like that again.

"It's gone."

Sage shot her head up from her hands, staring at her mother with raised eyebrows. "What's gone?"

"Your heart," Mallory whispered, her voice soft as she gestured to her daughter's hand. The place where a silver-banded ring used to be was now an absent spot, something that happened to darken up what light had been left in their conversation. The significance of the four words in total that her mother had spoken was irreparable, providing Sage with a deeper wound than the one she received when she took off her entire means of surviving. "It's gone."

For the second time, there was a hard closure in her throat that she couldn't ignore, preventing her from doing anything but swallow down her emotions. Sage refused to cry anymore. It did nothing to help the cause, and she was so completely sick and tired of it. She was sick and tired of people looking at her with a fragile manor, acting as if she barely knew how to properly stand after what happened. She was so sick and so tired of being reminded that she had officially lost her best friend four days ago when she took off the one thing that was always supposed to stay. The blonde glanced up at the woman with a strained, and overly weak, smile. "I know. Not forever, though."

A look washed over Mallory's face for a split second— just a second. Realization. Realization that the person sitting in front of her looked too similar to the daughter she was told had died in a fire seven years ago; realization that she had passed a trait down to a teenage girl that had already faced a fate with death twice at such an adolescent age. It was enough for Sage Connelly to realize that it would be the last time she would see her mother, knowing that she couldn't risk the thought of exposing her mother to the reality that she hadn't lost her entire life in that fire. She couldn't risk it because she, herself, knew how much it hurt to have to wake up every day and understand that the means to disappear had been ripped away because of another's sole existence. Sage knew that, no matter how much she wished she had never known her mother was alive, she would always have to hold the crushing weight of realizing she wasn't the only Connelly to evade the fire seven years ago.

Finally, after a few seconds of silence between the mother and the daughter, Mallory Connelly gave Sage Connelly a look of complete distrust once again. This time, the younger blonde felt her heart become a little bit more broken than it had been when she first came in. "Who are you?"

"No one important," Sage assured, giving the woman a weak smile in response as she reached her hand out to squeeze Mallory's. Her mother only furrowed her eyes, unaware that the travesty in front of her was the most important thing that would ever become of her ill life. The teenage girl reluctantly let go of Mallory's hand, pushing her chair back so that she could turn to look at the orderly that had been staring at Sage with interest. "Can you tell Marin Morrell that I'd like to have updates on her status?"

The man gave a cocky snort, crossing his arms over his chest. It was obvious that he didn't give two shits about the health of the occupants at Eichen House, much less those that come to visit. The fact that he found an interest in her wasn't something that struck her as good news. "I wouldn't be expecting any change, sweetheart. Crazy is crazy. Guess you better start praying that you don't end up like your nutjob of a mother."

"Guess you better start praying that my nutjob of a mother doesn't kill you," Sage answered, placing her hands back into her jacket with raised eyebrows towards the man. Even though she had little energy to spit venomous words at people, there was no denying the fact that this man did nothing but perfect his actions to piss off others. He just chose the wrong person to do so. When the man's lips turned into a frown at her confident response, she felt herself begin to smirk for the first time in a very long time. "Who knows what she might do to you... I mean, crazy is crazy, right?"

Sage went to leave out the door after her response, but had been sent to an abrupt halt when a hand reached out to grab a hold of her arm tightly. The blonde sucked in a deep breath in surprise, feeling the circulation already begin to cut off as she turned her head to see that the orderly was now staring at her with fire in his eyes. His next words were being hissed out through his teeth, his own kind of venom materializing into Sage's mind as a threat. "You better hope the next time you see Mommy, you're not sitting in a straight jacket next to her."

"I'm not a big fan of restraints," Sage snapped, her glare set heavy on his face. There was anger inside of her over too many things, and she wasn't going to let this man corrupt her over a single comment. Instead, she just jerked her arm free of his grasp, taking a few steps back to get through the door frame. Before she left, she turned around to face him with a tight line on her lips, eyes cold with hatred towards a man she didn't even know. "I'm sure you'd look great in one, though."

Sage rotated her body around completely after that, leaving behind two things that she never wanted to face again. Mallory Connelly was a piece of the blonde that had been holding her back from starting over, and even though she hadn't received the answers she was hoping to when she walked in, she was able to leave with more toleration towards knowing that it would be the last time she saw her mother. She was able to accept that fact, and it made walking out the door and knowing she would never come back much easier. There was no longer a heavy weight on her chest that she would become as insane as her mother because, in the finest of ways, Sage was slowly beginning to realize that her own kind of insanity lived deep within her. It always had, and now that she's accepted that fact, she knew that it would no longer create her. She would create it.

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Sage couldn't have been more relieved to see her bedroom. Derek was out, which was something that didn't surprise her considering he was probably running around with Peter. She didn't support his decisions to involve his uncle in his life, especially since Peter had always been someone who carried an ulterior motive on his back like it was an extra skin. Not to mention, Peter Hale had been the one who ultimately revealed the truth about her family. He enjoyed every minute of her suffering from the moment he came back to life, and she hadn't understood why Derek continued to run back to the man until today. Despite how many contrasts there may be in a family member's actions, they would always be blood. They would always be the ones there at the end of the day to either ease the pain or make it ten times worse. There would, and never will be, anything in between that.

The blonde sat down her bag of clothes on the bed that she had taken home from the hospital, thankful that Lydia and Allison were generous enough to collect some leggings and hoodies that were much more comfortable than the gown she was in the first day. Those five days, today included, had been an intense battle between her medical health and her supernatural health. Doctors ruled her condition off as a heart attack and prescribed her medication that would ease her blood pressure, but she was still required to come in for check-ups every week. Melissa's demand considering the mother was the only reason Sage wasn't still in the hospital right now. She wasn't going to follow through with the medication, knowing that she was perfectly fine with her blood pressure, and she didn't want to have to depend on medication to suit her up for health. She would be fine without it.

"I thought the doctors said to go home immediately."

Sage stiffened at the entrance of a person, slowly turning around right when she was about to take off her jacket. She let herself relax when she saw who it was, sending the teenage boy a frown as she finished her job of pulling off her article of clothing. "I'm pretty sure being discharged means I'm free to do and go wherever I want."

"You were only discharged because everyone knew you would find a way to get out of the hospital if they said no. It's not the first time that it's happened. You and Lydia have a habit of escaping from places you should stay in," Isaac challenged, raising his eyebrows as he leaned against her door frame. He had been discharged three days before her, his healing finally kicking in and sending him into a sporadic recovery that had everyone letting out a relieved exhale. Two people in their pack had been spared of an existence with Death, and no one was going to try to ruin that.

Sage hadn't spoken to her tall, gentle giant in a while. He had come in to see her the moment he was completely recovered. The doctors finally realized that it was impossible to keep people from entering the ICU to see her, all of their excuses remaining the same line of, "We are her family." She was asleep, though, after her doctor had given her a dosage of pain medication when her head began to pound. That knocked her out for a solid eight hours, and by the time she woke up, the only person sitting next to her was Derek Hale. The teenage girl would be lying if she said she wasn't surprised at the initial response her friends had to the news about her. Even those that weren't in tune to everything that was happening showed up, from Danny Mahealani to Greenberg. They were her family, no matter how annoying they might get.

"If it makes you feel better, I wouldn't have jumped out the window," Sage stated, crossing her arms over her chest as she gave him an actual smile. When he kept his face full of disapproval, she sighed heavily before running her hands through her hair. "Look, it's not the first time I've been through this. I died. That really fucking sucks. I lost my abilities. Awesome for my mental health. My ex-boyfriend tried to kill me. Pretty sure that it's happened in a thousand movies. I'm still alive, though. I spent two months hating myself after I woke up in the clinic the first time, Isaac, and I'm not going to throw myself into that hole again because I, honestly, have no energy left inside of me to crawl my way back out. I'm done with this whole thing. I can't do this anymore."

"Can't do what?" he asked, his lips set out into a thin line as he followed her actions and crossed his own arms. The two of them knew each other all too well, and whether that be the amount of time that they spent together when he was living with them, or just the fact that they were literally the opposite gender representations of one another, they didn't know. Isaac was the only one apart from Derek that had the blunt force of telling the truth, no matter how much it hurt. She would always respect him for that. "Be a hero or be a human?"

Sage was aware that Isaac understood her, just as much as he was aware that she understood him, but that moment right then was the first time she realized that he truly knew how completely horrible it felt to have an expectation that couldn't be held. "Both."

Isaac nodded in silence, not knowing was else to say. The two of them stood there for a few seconds, Sage trying to figure out how she was going to start up another conversation that didn't consist of what happened a few days ago. He raised his shoulders, taking a deep exhale before he took the few steps to the middle of the room where she was. The blonde watched with curious eyes as he pulled something out from his back pocket, just before she immediately recognized it and felt her face drop. Every situation she was in always led back to the same object, the little piece of heavy significance being held in the werewolf's hand as he waited for her to take it from him. He didn't know what it was, aside from a ring, but he did know that Sage never took it off. Just by the look in her eyes and the excessive heartbeat that was ringing in his ears, it was important.

"Scott gave it to me when I told him that I was going to see you," Isaac explained, noticing the way that she kept her eyes on the jewelry instead of him. His eyes narrowed in wonder slightly before he found himself connected dots slowly. There were only fragments that he had about the events that happened, and putting them together was like trying to solve a puzzle that didn't have all of the pieces. All he knew was that the Nogitsune had been in Sage, something happened at the power substation, the Nogitsune was, now, in Stiles, and that teenage boy had tried, and accomplished, killing people. Sage found herself including in that list for a short amount of minutes.

Sage swallowed, slowly taking the ring from Isaac and turning around to make her way to her dresser. She placed the piece of jewelry down next to two other larger rings, hoping that she would, one day, find the will to put it back on. For now, all she could do was focus on figuring out what happened to her abilities and how they would affect her pack in the long run. Looking back Isaac's way, she wrapped her arms around herself. "Have you seen him?"

"He stopped by the house to talk to Scott yesterday," Isaac said, his hands falling back into his jacket pockets. "Whatever Deaton did to him is working for right now, but—"

"It's not permanent," Sage finished, already knowing where the werewolf was going to take the sentence. She ran her hands through her hair, trying to figure out what they were going to do. There was no one in the town of Beacon Hills that understood the supernatural better than Deaton. Anyone with even the slightest of chance to level up to his experience would have to be an emissary. As if that single revelation sparked an idea inside of her, her eyes widened and she was fumbling to get her phone out from the back of her jean pocket. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it two hours ago when she had the resources to see the person.

Isaac watched her with an oblivious mind, wondering who in the hell she thought she needed to call so late at night. "I don't think Scott's going to answer. He was in a rush out the door when I was leaving."

"I'm not calling Scott," Sage denied, grabbing a hold of her jacket in an attempt to put it on while she balanced her phone in between her head and her shoulder. There was three dial tones, and the blonde was about to give up, when the person on the other line finally picked up. Sage wasn't standing on the best of terms with the woman, but she was only other known emissary that lived in Beacon Hills aside from her older brother. "Morrell? Morrell, it's Sage. I need your help with something."

There was a shuffling on the other end of the phone. "Is this about your—"

"No," Sage quickly dismissed, making sure that she didn't look at Isaac as she did so. The last thing she needed was to deal with her friends finding out about her mother being alive, that being one of the biggest secrets that she's kept in her entire life aside from her supernatural life. "I need to talk to you about something else. Is there any way for us to meet? It's important."

"I have three more sessions I have to complete before the end of the night, but I can manage some time tomorrow morning before I see anyone. It's going to have to be quick, though. Come by my office at seven," Morrell stated, her words calm and committed just like they had always been from the moment Sage met her. There was a pause in the call before the woman continued. "I may not be able to give you the answers that you are so desperate to find, Sage."

"I'm holding out hope that you can." The blonde swallowed hard, knowing that they were at the end of their conversation. She pulled the phone from her ear, ending the call and leaving her with more questions to answer that should have been better left undisclosed. Sage put her phone back into her pocket, glancing up to see that Isaac was staring at her with awaiting eyes. She figured he wouldn't be the type of person to let a situation be. "Deaton doesn't know how to help Stiles and I. He doesn't know what the Nogitsune did to my abilities when it killed me. We don't know if he has them, if me dying affected it in some way, or if he just wants to play another stupid game with me. Morrell might have those answers. I need answers, Isaac."

Isaac wasn't on board with the idea in the slightest. "And, she might not. Are you sure you even want to get answers for what happened? How do any of us even know that this isn't a good thing? We don't have to worry about making mistakes that end up hurting you anymore, Sage. We don't have to go out of our minds anymore watching as you get more unstable by the minute. You're acting like losing your abilities was the end of your life, but from everyone else's point of view, it just looks like the beginning to a new one."

The werewolf didn't regret speaking the truth, even when he noticed the hurt expression that crossed over her face for a split second. It was gone a moment later, though. Sage didn't understand the gravitational affect that she had on people. Every single person in her life cared about her a great deal more than she wanted them to, and all of them had to register inside of their minds that there would be continuous moments when they saw her in pain. There would be continuous moments when their heart rates accelerated because they didn't know if she was going to live or die, and there was an agonizingly brutal amount of guilt that Isaac knew all of the pack felt when they made a mistake and Sage faced those repercussions. She didn't know how incredibly horrible it felt to know that they were the cause of the pain in someone that they loved. Now that that was gone, a heavy weight had lifted from their chests if only for a minimal amount of time.

"Being an altor was the only thing I had left," Sage explained, her voice raising slightly as she felt a hoarseness cross over her tone. She had her own thoughts on Isaac's words, and they were not the same opinion. "It was the only thing that made me feel worth something, and, now, all of it is gone. The pain, the suffering, the absolute crushing fear that someone I love is going to get hurt or die — it's all gone, Isaac. You don't understand how much more excruciating that is for someone like me. I was created to be there for each of you. I'm supposed to be there for you guys in those critical moments where you don't know if you're going to live or die. I'm supposed to be there to let you know that you're not alone and I'm always going to be there, and that was taken away from me. That was unwillingly a part of my identity that was ripped away from me, and I don't know if I'm ever going to get that back."

Isaac stared at her, realizing that this was probably the first time that they had ever had a true disagreement. The blonde's heartbeat was accelerating, her face hard with a contortion that he was sure only Derek and Stiles had gotten used to seeing. "Being an altor wasn't the only thing you had left. It didn't create your identity, Sage. It just showed you the person that you've always been. Abilities or not, we know that you're always going to be there for us. That's who Sage Connelly is. Not who an altor is. You're just setting yourself up with the expectation to fail as a human when you haven't had the chance to be one in seven years."

The blonde couldn't ignore the shadowed doubt that was building up inside of her head, Isaac's words having a deeper impact that he imagined. The teenage boy was rarely ever that serious about a situation, never having been one for impactful words. She didn't realize that he ever thought so deeply about things until he was trying to convince her of a cause that she didn't believe; and, he was right. Sage Connelly didn't know how to exist as a human anymore. She barely knew how to accept it. The only thing that she would continuously believe is that she had always been a vulnerable piece of human catastrophe no matter where she stood on the spectrum of supernatural. That catastrophe never failed to be there for the people that she loved, though. Not until she lost her own mind and spent countless months trying to fix what should have been left alone in a stationary place of brokenness.

Sage felt a small smile crack on her face, an exhausted laugh escaping from her mouth. "Being human sucks."

"It always will," Isaac agreed, his own lips falling in a hesitant smile of his own. The two of them were no longer treading on shallow water and were, now, able to place the humor into a situation that could have ended with a much larger scale of disastrous feelings than what they let show. "You just have to give it some time, Sage. No one is expecting for you to fight this after what happened. Scott and Deaton will figure out a way to save Stiles, and he'll be back to his irritating self soon enough. Just give it some time."

"Time has never worked in our favor, Isaac," Sage deadpanned, her features softening slightly and shoulders evening out of their hard posture. She appreciated his attempt at comforting her, and his words eased her stressed mind if only in the slightest, but she could tell that even he was having difficulty believing his own words.

The werewolf scrunched up his nose in realization. "That's true. I figured there had to be some motivation somewhere in those sentences, though. Guess it didn't work."

"Not at all."

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Visiting Eichen House once was enough for Sage, and having to go back continuously was sentencing the teenage girl to her own personal experience in hell. The fact that her mother and William Barrow were locked up in the place hadn't been her deepest concern with the institution, more so, the entire sculpted structure in general. It was a place dedicated to the outright insanity of the human soul, exposing people to the destruction that had been suppressed in most people but on full display for the patients of the facility. It was a place that could detect darkness inside of a person from a mile away, giving a visitor full access to a catatonic image of what they could end up being in the near future. It was a place that Sage feared more than anything else because she knew that, if it truly came down to the situation where her insanity provided her with a mentally unstable head, this would be the first recommendation for her. Those three sole remaining factors rung deep within the caved veins of the teenage girl every single time she walked through the rusted gates.

"I need your help." Sage's voice projected through Marin Morrell's office, the interior of the place deflecting her words back to her by the extreme size. The blonde had never been into the woman's office, but it was the only place that she was aiming to visit given the fact that she was on a strict understanding with herself that she didn't want to run into the orderly from yesterday or see her mother. Morrell sat in her chair, chest up to the desk as she stared at Sage standing in front of her. "Has Deaton explained to you what's been happening lately?"

Morrell tilted her head slightly, inspecting Sage's tense body language with interest. "I'm aware of the current situation happening with your pack, yes. I don't understand how it should concern me, or why my assistance would provide any more insight than my brother's."

The conflict between the two in the room was evident. Sage did not trust Morrell, and Morrell did not respect Sage's choices. The last time the two of them spoke to one another, a bitter exchange left both near fumes. For the blonde to be standing in front of the woman meant that the cold attitude she had for Deaton's sister needed to be dismissed, and that the help that the teenager needed was much more important. It didn't mean that Sage was going to become ultimately comfortable with the woman, refusing to take a seat because she knew that she was not going to subject herself to being Morrell's patient all over again. She had been through that after Matt Daehler's death, and being told to express how she felt with someone she barely knew was not a place she wanted to return to. If she wanted therapy, she would have spoken to someone that wasn't using that profession as a daily job in a mental institution.

"I need you to tell me what you know about the relationship between a Nogitsune and an altor," Sage said, crossing her arms over her chest in a guarded stance. She knew that Isaac told her that she didn't need to go looking for answers, but she couldn't live in that oblivious state for the rest of her life. "It said that there was an exchange from me to Stiles, that I was the beginning host or something to whatever the hell it's trying to accomplish. Why the hell was I the one that it went after first?"

Marin paused for a few moments, slowly clasping her hands together on top of her desk. Her looming eyes never once diverted from Sage, the contact enough for the blonde to feel gradually uncomfortable the longer that it proceeded. "I'm sure Alan has spoken about the open door that was created during the sacrifices— how you, Stiles, Scott, and Allison all gave every supernatural being that may be lurking in the state between life and death a compelling resource to escape. If the Nogitsune chose you to be the original host, that means that you were the most vulnerable at the time. You were the most susceptible of entrance. Were you and your friends still facing the hallucinations a few days before you began having black outs?"

"It was just Stiles and I," Sage answered, her hands tucking into tight fists in the space between her arm and her chest. It brought a sickening feeling to her stomach thinking about what she unconsciously did to Stiles, the nausea creeping up on her without warning. "I was still having the hallucinations about my friends' deaths, and he was still having trouble reading anything. Neither of us knew when we were awake and when we were dreaming. Allison and Scott were quicker to recover from the aftereffects."

"Allison and Scott were quicker to close the door," Marin reiterated, correcting the sentence slightly before she pursed her lips in concentration. There was a lot of information that her mind had to puzzle together, and only a limited amount of time that the woman had to do it. "The Nogitsune made the natural choice to choose you instead of Stiles at first, whether that be because you were having more subconscious problems with the hallucinations than Stiles was or because of the connection to being an altor, I'm not sure. You were his first achievement. His first victory. Something had to have happened that threatened the exposure of it's identity for the Nogitsune to just give up on that."

Sage swallowed hard, her nails beginning to dig into the palms of her hands. "Stiles put the pieces together. It's what he does. He knew me well enough to realize that I wasn't acting the way that I normally did. The Nogitsune made a mistake, and Stiles noticed it. I didn't notice, and maybe if I had, I wouldn't have lost my abilities and those deputies at the station wouldn't be dead."

"The Nogitsune wouldn't have made the same mistake twice, Sage," Marin explained, the softness in her tone something that surprised the blonde enough to have her looking up with furrowed eyebrows. "They're not stupid creatures, and by the looks of it, the Nogitsune saw the relationship that you had with Stiles and used that against both of you. It had time to see the way that Stiles worked while inside of your mind. You were a flaw, and perfection was the most important detail that was necessary to win the game. Taking you out of the equation would have, not only insured a longer existence with Stiles given the destruction your death would cause him, but, also, given the Nogitsune access to every single moment in which you found yourself flooding to the very top in pain. It wanted your agony, and you willingly gave it away by caring about the people in your pack more than you cared about yourself."

Sage noticed that the woman was easing on the restraint of saying anymore. The amount of information she had been given was already more than the blonde felt comfortable asking Deaton, but it didn't bring any sense of gratification. It didn't give her relief in knowing that she wasn't the one completely to blame for Stiles' state because she was. The only thing that Morrell had given her was more guilt in the detailed description as to what exactly happened between herself, Stiles, and the Nogitsune. There was still hesitation at the end of Morrell's explanation that had Sage taking a step forward in curiosity, wanting to know what the woman was refraining from. "If you want to say something else, just say it."

"Caring too much gets you killed," Marin admitted, not an ounce of regret in her words after they escaped her mouth. What she didn't expect to see come from Sage was an actual smile, something that the guidance counselor had never seen worn on the teenage girl's face before. The blonde found Morrell's sentence amusing to say the least, knowing very well how completely right it was and how much experience she already had with it at just seventeen.

"Then, at least I'd die knowing I saved someone that I love." Sage knew that they had hit the end of their conversation after that, the smile that she had on her face dropping slowly as she kept her eyes on Marin so the woman would understand how completely serious she was. She was well aware of the consequences that came with caring for someone, having lived under that jurisdiction of threat her entire life. It meant that there was something that could be lost in the end, something that someone could easily take away for the discretion of power. When a love for someone came into the ruthless equation of an unprecedented kind of sovereignty, it was only a matter of seconds before that was used as a person's greatest Achilles heel. Unlike one weak spot in a direct place on her body, Sage lived with dozens all along her heart and she accepted that without any more shortness of breath. "Thanks for the help."

Marin stood up from her seat hastily when she noticed that the blonde was making a turn to leave. Her features were strained, something that was uncommon in the psychiatrist's features. "Sage, you need to be careful around those you trust. There are people in this world viscous enough to use your compassion against you. The Nogitsune will not be the last supernatural creature to pick up on your will to do anything for the people you love, and it will not be the last to find ways to destroy you and everyone you love because of it."

Sage knew that Morrell noticed how her body visually stiffened at the warning. The blonde felt the words truly sink in, knowing that they had created something the moment that they triggered the Nemeton's energy into becoming a beacon again. It never fully grasped inside of her mind that her and her friends might face more than what they currently were coping with in the near future, that there might be more situations that threaten to falter the strong connection their pack had with one another. Now that she knew, Sage Connelly relaxed her shoulders but didn't turn around to make eye contact with Marin Morrell. "Destruction can only happen if those being destroyed have never felt pain."

And, each of her friends had experienced more than enough. She knew that they were strong enough to overcome the roughest of situations because she had seen it first-hand. She knew that, as long as they stayed together, they would get past their demons. Sage didn't utter a goodbye to the woman behind her, just shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her fitted, brown leather jacket in hopes that it would secure her into comfort while exiting the place that consisted of her biggest fears. She had gotten to the facility before the patients were allowed to roam the grounds, which meant that she would be walking directly into a cluster of mentally conflicted souls that had no release of their treacherous minds. Keeping her head down and her eyes diverted from contact was the only solution she had for getting out as quickly as possible the moment that she opened the door to Marin's office.

When she stepped outside, she noticed that there were a few patients of Eichen House crowding along a brick wall that had been created to support the building. Immediately, there was a crawling parasite of remorse for the human beings that were locked away in this place. Some of them deserved it, like William Barrow, but some people in this place were deemed unsuitable for life. They were thrown away as though their lives meant nothing in reality, and that wasn't something that any human should have no matter the emotional and psychological state that they were in. The blonde did as she promised herself, moving to divert her eyes so that she was no longer staring in the direction of the porcelain creations only to be stopped when she saw the slightest of familiarity from the back of a person's head.

Sage's orders to stay strictly to the path where the exit was had been sidetracked to the bottom of her list of necessary needs when she saw the brunette that was standing with their own guarded posture, unaware of the person that was coming up from behind with absolute confusion washing over their features. The blonde made solid, slow steps until she was standing right behind the person, reaching out to grab a hold of their shoulder. "Malia?"

The teenage girl turned around at the touch of another person, and Sage's initial question of whether or not it was the werecoyote that they saved in the woods nearly a month ago had been answered. Malia Tate stood in front of Sage, a blank face as she stared at the blonde with little interest in why her identity was a concern. The blonde was utterly confused, wondering why the girl was in Eichen House if her father had just gotten her back. She didn't see how someone could voluntarily allow the child they had lost for so long leave again, and this time, in a place where death controlled the campus. Sage hadn't personally been in association with Malia, only having seen the pictures of her all over the papers for a solid two weeks after what happened. Now, the person that she became, the human that she became, took a stationed seat in the one place that she would fit in perfectly at being anonymous.

Sage noticed that she wasn't going to get anything from Malia, and pressed slightly further. "My name is Sage. We've never officially met, but I know a lot about you. My friends and I were the ones that helped you out."

The blonde waited to see if the brunette girl was going to say anything, Malia's face completely blank for another five seconds before she did something that Sage had honestly not been expecting. A blow came to the teenage girl's face, hard enough that she nearly lost her balance, but not enough for her to completely fall to the ground. Immediately, she felt the harsh sting come from the strength that the supernatural creature possessed, iron building up in her mouth as something heavy built up inside of her. That single action was all it took for the agonizingly crushing rage that she had locked up inside of her to be released, the teenager ready to lung for the girl as the imminently lethal and catastrophic time bomb that was Sage Connelly got ready to fight her way through the world of problems she was facing. The well-deserved hit that Malia deserved from Sage had been ceased the moment that arms wrapped around both girls, stopping either from advancing forward with the fight that was bound to create an increasingly dubious amount of problems.

"Let me go! She's the one who hit me!" Sage snapped at the two pairs of arms wrapped around her, keeping a glare on Malia as the werecoyote was sent to the ground by her own set of orderlies. The teenage girl felt her lip curling in the absolute rage, wondering why in the hell she became the target practice for Malia when she hadn't even done anything to her. Even despite the blonde's protests about not once touching the girl, the two orderlies restraining her from moving kept a deadly grip on her body. That was when Sage felt herself hiss out another set of words in an attempt to get them to release her. "I'm not a patient here. She's the one who came at me."

Sage's excuses fell flat into silence, much like her expression, when she realized that another set of orderlies were showing up to the scene. The man standing in the very front was wearing a sadistically sinister smile, directing it at the blonde, of whom he had seen only a few hours prior to their current situation. Sage didn't make a move to get out of the orderlies' grips anymore, her joints locked shut from the absolute fear that she had. The rage had been forgotten, and all that she had left was an insidious tremor building up inside of her bones because she knew exactly what was going to happen next. The man, the same man that had threatened her, the same man that promised to see her in a straight jacket if she were to ever return to Eichen, had been given the perfect opportunity to reek an eternity of sentenced hell on the seventeen year old, cataclysmic and ever-so-fragile definition of what a true human was. He smiled because he knew. She fell apart because she knew, too.

"Take her to a psychologist. Make sure to tell them that she's a threat to society," the orderly stated, taking a few steps forward so that he was standing directly in front of Sage. All eyes were on the main attraction right now, watching with curiosity as the man's lips stretched further up into an absolutely amused smile. He had the authority to do whatever he wanted, the facility having the capability of holding her for seventy-two hours, by law, if they believed she wasn't fit to be roaming out with people in public— if they believed she was truly a threat to society. No one could get her out. "See how she likes a jacket. She looks like a fan of restraints."

Sage clenched her jaw tightly together, never once in her life feeling so much absolute hatred for a single living human being. She had felt dislike, and she had felt disgust, but there was nothing that she could sympathize with in this situation. The man, the man who's name she didn't even know, had become the one person in her life that she would feel no sadness over death. He thrived off of watching her suffer with his orders, taking a few steps back to marvel in watching as the two orderlies began to lift up the teenage girl's slacking body weight. The blonde was rotated completely, facing the opposite direction of where the events currently occurred, only to come face-to-face with the last person she had ever wanted to see in a situation like this.

Stiles was in Eichen House; and, now, so was she.

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IMPORTANT! READ, PLEASE! I KNOW YOU DON'T WANT TO READ AUTHOR'S NOTES BUT IT'S SERIOUSLY IMPORTANT! There's something that I have to address, and there's also another thing that I want to inform you guys that I'm debating on doing. There have been a lot more comments on this book, mainly after the break up with Sage and Stiles, where people are growing irritated with the fact that Stage isn't together because, "It's a Stiles fanfiction." I wanted to talk about this for just a moment because it irritated me to no end. I'm not calling anyone out, I promise I'm not, but I'm just informing everyone who thinks this way. This is Sage's story. This is not a story where the entire book is committed to short and sappy scenes of a relationship that doesn't seem realistic. Couples fight, couples go through rough patches, couples break up, couples get back together, couples go through problems that they question recovery from. That is only a single aspect of this book. Stiles is only a part of Sage's life. I created this story wanting to show people that there can be a girl who wants to be a heroine and do the right thing more than be the love interest that sits on the sidelines and watches the big, bad boys do everything instead. I created this story to show people that there can be a strong and independent female lead that has the capability of having her own scenes with other people apart from her love interest. I created this story to be about Sage, not Stage.

There are still going to be scenes between Stiles and Sage. The two of them are always going to have feelings for each other, but some of you are completely dismissing the fact that Sage is not going to be capable of loving Stiles completely again until she learns how to love herself. I've never directly said that Sage suffered from depression, but it's been the main theme throughout the majority of 3b. It's the reason why it would make absolutely no sense for Stage to be together right now. When a person is depressed, they revoke themselves from everything. They detach themselves from people and things they used to love. They become a shell of a human being desperately trying to crawl their way back to the surface to find themselves. You can not begin to love another human until you accept the fact that your placement in the world matters more than a relationship. It just infuriates me when people don't understand that. I know that it's never been directly answered by me, but now, it is. Stage broke up for a logical reason, and anyone who has suffered from depression knows this. It's a parasite that eats away everything you love until you can't even love what you have left of yourself.

Because of this, I want to ask if you guys would accept my choice to turn the label in the title of Still from 'Still, 'Stiles Stilinski'' to just 'Still, 'Teen Wolf'. I'll keep Sage with the label of Stiles' name, mainly because the first book is more lighthearted and is actually their love story as opposed to their fallout. The first book was more about their relationship than Sage, I'll admit that, but Still isn't. Still is about Sage. It's about her character development, whether or not Stiles is a part of that. I'm not saying that this is the end of Stage, I'm just saying that this is Sage's life. I completely respect anyone's choices if they don't want to read this story because of the way I write, but I'm not going to stop because depression, self-hatred, and all of these different outlooks on life through Sage's perspective are so much more important for our generation today than a simple love story. I want my writing to inform as well as please, not just the latter. I hope that you guys can see where I'm coming from, and please let me know if you understand and respect my decision to change Still to a Teen Wolf general label as opposed to sentencing it to just a love story about Sage and Stiles.

And, I had to address how incredibly amazing all of you were to me in the last chapter. I received so many absolutely amazing comments that literally brought tears to my eyes because I felt so much relief in hearing that you guys understood me. You understood me through what I portrayed through Sage, and I'm so sorry if I didn't answer all of your comments. Please, just know that it will and always has meant the absolute world to me. I want each of you to know that you're not alone, and that other people have the exact same thoughts as you, and there is a recovery. There is a light at the end. You just have to keep surviving to find it. I love you all to the moon and back. Endless amount of gratitude for everything that each and every single one of you has blessed me with. These achievements, getting Sage to 1M and Still to 600k, all of it is the dedication you have to a single, complex character named Sage Connelly. It's all you. You guys are the ones who loved her enough to want to read more, and for that, I'm forever in your debt. Much, much love.