my sincerest apologies, but this is the chapter that i am most proud of. it's awfully long, though, so i would just be prepared for that. im splitting the rest of this episode with the next one considering they're the only ones that are 'to be continued' and everything. i promise it will make sense- ish. on the bright side, i updated!

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FORTY EIGHT;

YOUNG LOVE MURDER

"So, what are you saying?"

The question fell from Melissa McCall's mouth when her ex-husband began to explain why he believed it was odd that Stiles had been smelling something so pungently, and how it could help them in trying to figure out where he went sleepwalking. The two adults were plenty aware of the distressed teenager in the back of the car, even more aware that she was running on a short fuse, and that if they didn't find Stiles then they would be dealing with more than just the Sheriff's missing son. Melissa tried her hardest to convert the conversation into delicate responses, and even Agent McCall, who has barely spoken a single word to Sage since she was a little girl— words that didn't consist of when he was dying — knew well enough that they were running out of time to find Stiles.

Agent McCall hesitated at Melissa's question, giving her glance to try and confirm that it was okay to speak about his hypothesis with the main victim's ex-girlfriend in the backseat. "I'm saying, the real question might be: how do we know he's not still asleep?"

"You mean, he's been asleep this whole time?" Melissa asked, her eyebrows shooting up in disbelief as she wondered if he was truly right about the possibility of Stiles having fled his house, winding up halfway across town with sleep still paralyzing his body.

Sage, who had been previously silent the entire time that they were driving around the perimeter of Beacon Hills, felt herself blinking back a sort of anesthetic feeling as she tried to wrap her head around the conversation that they were having right in front of her. Even the slightest possibility of Stiles being asleep this entire time could give them a hint to where he might have gone, but there were two things preventing her from finding out where that was; one, had been the fact that she was so unstable at the moment she barely knew her own name, and two was that, through the entire process of them losing their sanity, she hadn't been with Stiles. There was no way for her to know where his nightmares brought him every night.

She felt useless as she stared out the windshield, knuckles turning white the longer she grasped her hands tightly together. "People are unpredictable, even when they're sleeping."

"Exactly," Agent McCall agreed, nodding his head towards the blonde, somewhat grateful that she was actually responsive in the conversation. "One guy goes down to the kitchen and cooks an entire meal. Another guy is found mowing his lawn— naked."

Melissa didn't seem to understand where the man was leading them, or how Sage grasped what he was explaining without even tuning into all he said. "Why does any of that matter?"

"Remember that townhouse apartment we lived in?" the agent questioned, looking over at the curly-haired brunette for confirmation to try and better explain himself. "There was that one night I came home drunk—"

Melissa scoffed with an unamused sneer. "Oh, one night?"

The blonde pressed her lips tightly together from the back seat of the car, feeling as though she were intruding on something meant for the former couple only. She knew about all of the issues involving Scott's parents, and had she not talked with Melissa about it over the course of the summer, the memory back in fourth grade where Agent McCall walked into their classroom drunk, trying to find his son, remained branded into her head forever. He might be trying to clean himself up and redeem what little integrity he had left in this town, but that didn't mean he deserved to be forgiven for leaving Scott and Melissa alone without support.

He deprived Scott of the life that he should have had. Agent McCall deprived Scott of moments and memories that should have been memorable and special, leaving just empty holes of a past with a drunk father and an absent parent. Sage didn't have a choice in those moments, her father having been taken away from her rather than leaving her to learn how to survive. She knew that Scott's situation was worse because, while Hal Connelly didn't have a choice to leave his child, Rafael McCall did. He chose to leave behind a little boy despite raising him, despite loving him. The man knew his son and still realized that he didn't want to be a part of his life anymore.

He still left, and Sage wasn't going to let him forget that for Scott and Melissa's sake.

"Let me finish," he pleaded, his jaw tightening slightly as he made an attempt to justify his actions. "So, I'm drunk, passed out on the bed. I get up to go to the bathroom, and then, all of a sudden, I hear you yelling, "What the hell are you doing?""

Melissa's lips quirked up in slight amusement, barely aware that she was slowing giving into the man's attempt to rekindle the relationship between them little by little. "Because you were in the closet peeing into the laundry basket!"

"Yeah, I thought it was the bathroom."

"Oh, no," Melissa denied, shaking her head. "You were drunk off your ass."

Sage was barely conscious of the fact that her nails were beginning to dig into her skin, a habit that she acquired from all of the moments when she had to remind herself of reality. Right now, it didn't feel like a reality. She understood that the two adults were trying their hardest to find the teenage boy, but she didn't see how they could even manage a smile in this kind of situation. She didn't understand how they could even bring themselves to laugh when they had seen so many cruel things, and know the possible conditions that Stiles could be in right now. She didn't see how they could smile when she hadn't done it in forever, even the slightest idea of it on her lips would feel foreign.

Agent McCall let his mouth twitch slightly, gripping the wheel tighter. "Yeah, but I was convinced that it was the bathroom. So, how do we know Stiles isn't just convinced he's in some kind of basement, but isn't actually there? I think when he called Scott, he was still asleep... and he's still asleep right now."

The man seemed confident with what he believed, but the girl in the backseat was still on edge as she ran her hands through her tangled hair, desperately trying to find some solace in this. The worst part of it all was the fact that everyone seemed to be depending on her to provide the answer to where Stiles was, that they were expecting for an epiphany to happen where Sage finds herself remembering every detail of every moment that she hadn't shared with Stiles. Maybe if she had been more selfish, maybe if she decided that the ache was worth it, she would be supplying Agent McCall with an answer of where to go.

But, she didn't have one.

Never once having taken her eyes away from the road through the windshield, Sage's lips were questioning the man much quicker than her mind functioned. "You're talking about him like you know where he is."

"I have an idea," he admitted, and that was when the Beacon Hills Preserve sign came into view. "On the transcript of the call, Stiles said that he smelled something horrible, and I was looking through files to see if anything came up where he was involved with some sort of chemical that could produce that reaction. That was when Malia Tate's investigation showed up."

The blonde opened her mouth just before shutting it for a second when her eyebrows furred as she tried to process everything. She didn't see how the case with Malia had anything to do with Stiles' deteriorating state, and went to ask him to further explain when the connections finally filled inside of her broken mind. Her, once confused, face fell flat when she realized why they were at the preserve, and jerked her body forward so that she was leaning over the driver's seat.

"Stop the car," she hissed, her hands digging into the shoulder of the seat as she grew more impatient. "Stop the car right now!"

Scott's father knew that it would be an unnecessary battle that he would never win, so he pressed down on the breaks where he was stationed, barely able to pull his keys from the ignition of the car before the door to the backseat was being pushed open and shut. Melissa turned to give the man a wide-eyed look, knowing that the last thing they needed was to lose two teenagers in a single night, pulling her own door open and following after the reckless blonde. It proved to be a difficulty, too, because of how dark it was with the current moon, Melissa nearly tumbling through sticks and holes on her journey to Stiles and Sage.

The teenage girl that Melissa was trying to catch up to was oblivious to everything that wasn't the path of directions, remembering vaguely the picture of the trails that Stiles showed her the day in History class. There had to have been, at least, thirty different things she tripped over, the exposed part of her legs from the holes in her jeans becoming bruised and bloody scrapes while her ankles succumbed to the most pain. She wasn't concerned about her own health, however, and continued to push herself through the dense forest to find the boy that had her panicked and potentially mental.

The idea had been cemented in her life that she couldn't risk the possibility of living without Stiles Stilinski. From the moment that she saw him after six years that first day of sophomore year, a demented teenage girl seeking vengeance, she realized that she fell into a never-ending hole that would consist of loving him. Coming back to her home wasn't supposed to change her life, it wasn't supposed to break her beyond belief all because she chose to let a boy love her. That decision had always been her own, and losing Stiles, losing everything that defined her from the moment she returned to Beacon Hills, would mean that there wasn't anything left of herself. Stiles was the only reminder that she had left of hope, and that hope couldn't just disappear.

She couldn't just let it go.

"Sage!" a voice called out from behind her, although she didn't even think twice about waiting for either McCall parent, knowing that she had to be the one to find Stiles first and no one else. It was something that she had to do in order to remind herself that there was still something there inside of her, that the guilt that was eating her alive for not answering his call in the first place could possibly be replaced with relief that he was okay. She had to be the one to find him.

By the time she crossed through her last path, nearly falling off an overhang cliff, she felt her heart on its way to falling from her chest. Just up ahead, the gouging image of a struggling body caught her vision even through the sick night, and her lungs screamed in protest when she pressed her boots harder into the cold ground. The final agonizing seconds from the time of hearing the distressed body scream to the time Sage finally went knees-first into the dirt had clawed away at her, sending a rippling agony down her spine when she quickly reached for the boy she spent her entire night looking for.

"Stiles," she hissed out, trying to grab a hold of his struggling body with little success, the boy having a much larger build that she was capable of holding down. "Stiles! You need to wake up!"

He refused, his fingers hollowing out the earth beside him as he let out another wailing cry. "No, wait!"

The blonde noticed two figures coming up from the distance, and she swallowed hard before she grabbed a hold of the thrashing boy's face, her hands keeping his cheeks in place while he continued to struggle, his nails scraping her arms. With one last cry, all of the anger that she had towards the teenage boy for putting her through such a horrifically terrorizing situation fell from her mouth in a single word. "Stiles!"

Stiles' body fell still for two seconds, and Sage feared in that moment that his heart had honestly stopped beating, just before a loud gasp filled the air around her and the arms that she had been grasping onto for dear life straightened out. A relieved cry fell from her lips, the boy blinking as he looked around in disorientation, his body beginning to tremble all over again as he realized he was in a different location that his mind perceived. When he inspected what he could through blurred tears, his dark eyes found the green ones that held the same intensity that burned bright from the moment he first met her.

"Sage?" he whimpered, practically shattering on spot as he felt his exterior of strength slowly break when he noticed the girl that he fell in love with holding onto him for dear life. His nimble fingers quickly moved down to her hand, grabbing the only support that he had and squeezing until he feared he would break her to pieces— such irony, that even in a situation where he was the one screaming for shelter, his safety had been with her.

His home had always been her.

The girl felt herself choking on her breaking point, nodding in a repetitive motion as the boy let out a deep exhale, his entire weight on her body as she felt him go slack. Her lips fell to his head, mouth pressing down on his damp face as she tried to keep herself together. His hands never removed from her own though, and she couldn't even find it in herself to let tears fall because she knew that she didn't deserve to cry. With her ex-boyfriend's freezing body being gripped tightly in her arms, Sage Connelly glanced up to see that Melissa and Agent McCall were staring with disheveled expressions.

It had been in that very moment that she realized she found her serenity in the selfishness of loving Stiles, of knowing that he was put into this problematic life of pain because of what happened to Scott a year ago, because Laura came back to Beacon Hills, because she came back to Beacon Hills. And, Sage didn't know how she was supposed to apologize to Stiles for that.

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The tapping of a heeled boot was the only sound emitting from the hallway of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. It was incessant enough for Melissa and Agent McCall to glance over every other moment, making sure that the teenage girl they were looking after didn't fall through the cracks and have an emotional breakdown. It was five minutes ago that Sheriff Stilinski arrived at the hospital, and now, they were just waiting for everyone else so they could get the grueling news of Stiles' health. Scott and Lydia fell behind at Eichen House while the Sheriff moved with his deputies the moment that he got the call from Melissa saying that they found his son.

Sage was silent, not having spoken a word since she screamed for Stiles to wake up. She looked to be the one in the most damage by their venture into the woods, having developed a series of cuts and bruises that she refused to get checked out by anyone until she knew that Stiles was in a stable condition. The last thing that she needed was to be away, if even for a split second, and not give the boy the support of someone that he needed. Although, she could just be saying that because she knew that she needed Stiles right now, and prayed that he needed her just as much.

Before Melissa could open her mouth to ask if Sage was okay for the eighteenth time in fifteen minutes, the sound of a elevator door echoed through the hallway, stopping the tapping that the blonde was creating. Sage lifted up her head immediately, glancing over to see who was coming through the doors and felt as though someone had forced a boulder into her throat when she saw who it was. Without thinking twice, she was up out of the seat she cemented herself in, jogging the majority of the way down the hall until she was crashing into a body.

"Whoa," the boy muttered, coughing a bit as he tried to recover from the abrupt impact of the small blonde. Scott glanced down at her, and his eyes softened the moment he saw her clinging onto anything she could, wrapping his arms around her neck, the two barely caring whether or not they were nearing suffocation; blonde hair clouded his vision as Sage tightened her grip on his jacket. "Hey, it's okay. He's going to be okay."

She shook her head, her chin falling on his shoulder as she stared ahead at the white wall, the image enough to sting her sensitive eyes. There was a conversation that she needed to have with Scott, one that she knew was going to happen eventually, but right now, the comfort of knowing that he was there was enough. The alpha could smell all of the distress radiating from her body, every inch of her coated in a swallowing worry about the boy separated by a thin wall.

Slowly, he pulled away from the blonde so that he could give her a halfhearted smile. "He's going to be fine, Sage. Let's just go sit down and wait for his dad to come back out, alright?"

The teenage girl nodded, still not trusting herself enough to speak, falling in synced steps with Scott as the two of them moved to catch up with the werewolf's parents and Lydia. The strawberry-blonde looked pained, an expression on her face that was clearly worn due to the failed attempt at figuring out the location of where Stiles had went sleepwalking to. Not a single person in the hallway could breathe properly, each and every single one of them coated in stress and anxiety towards wondering whether or not their actions were enough to make sure Stiles was safe.

He was their family. No matter how many times they may disagree on something, or accidentally put each other in harm's way, they were family. Their story began the moment that Scott had been bitten by Peter a year ago, and since then, it had never been another person to stand at their side. Sage always had Stiles and Scott, Scott always had Stiles and Sage, and Stiles always had Sage and Scott. The simple idea of that being replicated, of anything that they've went through being for nothing - that the death of Boyd, Erica, Laura, and so many others had all been for nothing... well, it was unimaginable.

They already lost Jackson to another continent, themselves to the plagued hallucinations that Jennifer Blake created, and each other to the broken promises left in between them. This time, the only promise that they needed to keep was that they would never leave— that Scott was going to remain a true alpha, not a deformed image of one; that Stiles was going to remain the glue to their pack, never break them of their morals; that Sage was going to remain the loyalist, never against the people she vowed to protect until she died; that Lydia was going to remain bright, not broken and diseased with doubt; that Allison was going to remain the warrior of them all, the strength of a hunter running deep within her veins never dying; that Isaac was going to remain the reminder that what was once bruised can always be fixed, and that giving up is not worth it; that Derek was going to remain their leader, their beginning savior, the one who gave them all the extraordinary life they were living.

And, most importantly, that they would all remain together. Within the simplest of moments that created who they were, a pact had been morphed from the time that they met to the winding seconds that led them to stand in this hospital. They would lose people for what they stood for and what they tried to change, and nothing was ever going to be considered a daily life for a normal teenager, but they had each other. There was hope, and there was an anchor that weighed them down any time they were derived too far from home. They had each other, and that was enough.

Stiles was broken right now, and they had to be there to fix him.

Heads turned around the moment that footsteps were heard on the tile floor, Melissa and Agent McCall standing up as Lydia found herself lacing hands with the blonde to her right. The action only made Sage realize even further that she surrounded herself with people that understood her better than she understood herself, and that even Lydia, who she despised up until half of sophomore year was over, could tell when she was reaching her breaking point. There was a heavy heart and a slowed time watching Sheriff Stilinski exit the room and begin walking towards them.

He gave the group of them a halfhearted smile. "He's sleeping now, and he's just fine. He doesn't remember much. It's been like a dream to him."

Sage felt her shoulders fall in relief, the inhale of air she took the moment she saw Stiles' father being released as she squeezed Lydia's hand. Scott, who was behind her, put his hands on both of the girls' shoulders, a sign of comfort for each of them. Stiles was going to be okay; despite the rage and the fear that they felt tonight, for each other and themselves, he was going to be fine. Nothing could explain the feeling that came over the three teenagers knowing that, all of them finally able to use their lungs for more use than chasing a small hope.

Sheriff Stilinski turned his attention away from his son's friends over to Agent McCall, all of the bad blood between them disappearing the second he got the call from the man saying that Stiles was found. "Thank you."

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

Stiles' dad shook his head. "No, it was more than that. Thank you."

"It was a lucky connection."

The Sheriff seemed to grow annoyed that all of his 'thank you's' were being dismissed by facts and excuses, his lips falling into a straight line as he gave the agent a hard look. "McCall, can you just shut up, please, and accept my dearest gratitude?"

Everyone seemed to fall still, wondering how the relationship between them was going to turn out. There was still something in the back of Sage's head screaming at her, a reminder of when Stiles practically threatened Agent McCall with a secret was shared between him and his father, one that they could hold against him She questioned how something could go from being so vividly corrupted to a truce of gratitude for the sole fact of saving the same life of the boy who threatened Agent McCall. Whatever brought upon the redemption in the agent was truly appreciated by everyone in this room, though, proving that there was still humanity left inside of the man.

Slowly, Scott's father gave in and moved his hand out to shake the sheriff's. "Accepted."

It didn't take long for the conversation to die, the two men standing next to each other in awkward acceptance while Melissa turned to look at the three teenagers standing beside her. "Alright, you three. You've got school in less than six hours. Go home and go to sleep."

Scott and Lydia both nodded in agreement, both of them beginning to walk forward in an aided attempt to take Sage with them, only for the blonde to shake her head and turn to look at Melissa like she was insane. There was no way that she was going to leave Stiles, asleep or not, he was going to wake up eventually and she refused to be sitting through fifty minutes of Algebra 2 when he does. Leaving his hospital, leaving his side, it wasn't an option at this point. It wasn't even a realistic idea.

Shaking her head, she pulled her hand out of Lydia's grasp. "I'm not leaving."

"Sage—"

Scott went to speak, but she didn't want to argue over her decision. "No. I'm serious. I'm not leaving. I don't care if I'm not family. I'll stay out here until they let me in, but I'm not going to leave this hospital. I won't be able to go back to sleep anyways, so it doesn't matter."

Everyone around her seemed to hesitate at the idea of leaving her at the hospital, not only because of all the horrible things that happen in the place, but because they knew that she was ready to hit her breaking point. It had been nearly two months since she last broke down, of which before that it was a frequent action, and the expectation was for her to begin crying at any waking moment. What they hadn't realized was that Sage didn't even know how to shed a tear anymore, knowing that crying was going to do nothing to help how she felt inside if the pain only came back three seconds later.

"It's fine," Sheriff Stilinski broke out, making all eyes turn to him. "I'll make sure the doctors let you in to see him, Sage. Just promise me that you'll be at school tomorrow if you don't go today, alright?"

Sage gave him a weak smile, one that had to be forced, before she turned to look at her two friends. Scott sighed, realizing that he wasn't going to win on trying to get her to go to school, wrapping his arms around her once again to give her a tight hug before pressing a kiss to her forehead. The moment that he let her go, Lydia had her arms wrapped around the blonde, the signs of comfort clear as the two girls quickly embraced before reluctantly letting go of each other. Both of them send a reassuring smile her way, and went to turn around but had been stopped when the blonde reached for Scott's jacket sleeve, pulling on it.

"Scott?"

He turned around to face her, confused. "Yeah?"

"Tell Aiden that I'm sorry if you see him at school," she answered, trying to ignore the guilt that was creeping upon her as she realized she was selfish for believing that spending the night with Aiden wasn't going to hurt either of them.

Scott felt his face fall slightly in realization, no doubt having put pieces together that something clearly happened between the blonde and her ex-boyfriend; even then, he nodded. That had been the last thing the two spoke of before he was walking away, his hand falling in Lydia's to assure that she was coping after her abilities as a banshee deceived her. Sage watched as they left, still feeling a pressure in her chest that she knew wasn't going to be leaving any time soon. She was naturally stuck, cursed, with a heavy heart and that was one of her fatal flaws— too much weight and it would begin to bleed.

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Four hours later, and Sage had yet to close her eyes.

She knew that it wasn't a good idea, especially since she hasn't had a full night of sleep in over a week, but she was barely able to shut her eyes without fearing that something was going to happen again. Sheriff Stilinski and Melissa took it upon themselves to check on Stiles and her every half hour, making it a total of eight times that they came in to see the same image: Sage curled up in one of the waiting room chairs, the jacket that Sheriff Stilinski gave her around her shoulders with her hand gripping tightly onto Stiles' as she just watched the unconscious boy for any signs of life apart from the small breaths.

There hadn't been any until the fifth hour when Sage felt her eyes begin to sting from how exhausted she was. Stiles' hand tightened in her own, much like he did when she found him back in the coyote den, just before his eyelashes began to slowly open in disorientation. A groan had built up from his throat, which immediately shot the blonde wide awake, one leg off the chair as she questioned if she should be getting Melissa to make sure that all of the boy's vital signs were okay.

"Hey, I'll go get Melissa," Sage assured, moving to get up completely when the hand that he was still holding tightened, stopping her from leaving him. Her body turned back around, and she noticed that he was shaking his head as best as he could. "Stiles, they've got to check to make sure you're okay."

The teenage boy blinked a few more times before tugging her with the strength he had, signalling that he wanted her back in the chair next to him. "I'm fine. What are you doing here?"

Sage frowned at him, not completely sure how deep it fell, but she didn't know how he could even ask her that question. Every single time that she was in the hospital bed, he had always been the one there to comfort her. Every time she was the one struggling on survival, he was always the one that brought her back and gave her a reminder of why she continued to fight. The fact that he even, for a second, thought that she wouldn't be sitting right beside him, no matter the title they placed upon themselves, was complete lunacy. She would always be there for him, as a girlfriend or a best friend, she didn't care.

"You shouldn't have to ask me that," she denied, never breaking her gaze with his dark eyes.

A smile cracked on his face, and he shrugged. "But, I am."

He didn't understand it, why she wrote off the relationship that they had all for the sake of saving his heart, when the realistic situation was that he didn't have a heart without her — drastic, he knew that, and never in his life would he have believed that he would succumb to the stereotype of a love-struck, idiotic teenage boy, but he did. He fell in love with this girl, his damn blonde, and he let her encase his life in ways that he never would have let anyone else. Stiles let her in; he let her see the caved realism that lived in his heart ever since his mother passed away, and he needed to know why she was in front of him right now if she gave up on that.

"Because, you're my best friend, Stiles," Sage whispered, her voice wavering slightly as she gave him a confused look, wondering why she had to justify her reasons. "Because, you were always there for me when I couldn't even be there for myself. Because, it was always you who knew when I wasn't all together, and because it was you fixed me when I didn't know how to recover from all the damage I created."

Stiles nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat as he squeezed on her hand, his thumb resting on the ring that he gave her. At this point, he was surprised that it wasn't on a shelf somewhere or in a trashcan. The idea of her still loving him ceased to exist in his mind, knowing that his belief was that she found herself falling for Aiden again and he was thrown to the side. The idea was that his father had been wrong about them finding their way back to each other, but he supposed all of his ideas were the impossible decayed thoughts of not wanting to be alone. They were wrong because they posed a threat to the ring on her finger.

He finally glanced up from the jewelry to see that she was staring at it as well. "You still wear it."

"It's pretty," she dismissed, trying to push aside the thought of letting him back in and breaking his heart. She loved him, she knew it, but she loved him too much and his suffering wasn't something she could live with. "It's not even a promise ring."

"It doesn't have to be," Stiles dismissed, giving her a tempted look. "All it has to be is hope that we can figure this out one day. I don't know when, or how many times we're going to hurt before it's over, but we'll figure it out. Do you want to know why?"

She didn't glance up from the ring. "Why?"

"Because, when I was a kid, I asked my mom what it meant to be in love with someone," Stiles began, and he didn't move a muscle as he realized he was finally having the conversation with her that he was desperate to initiate for weeks. "She kept telling me all of these things about it being agony to breathe when you thought about losing them, and I even asked my dad if it was supposed to hurt this much. He said that when you really love someone, you'll find your way back to them— and I refuse to believe that we won't find our way back to each other, Sage."

The blonde tried to ignore the gutwrenching feeling that flooded her body, an inexplainable emotion filling the void of emptiness that she felt ever since she broke up with Stiles. She realized that the anxious pressure that was building up in her bones ever since Scott called and told her that Stiles was missing was exactly what he described. The fact that he was still willing to love her after everything she has done, after everything that she turned into, made her nauseated. Stiles was good, too good to ever be truly happy with someone has bad as her.

With burning irises, she finally met his eyes again. "I can't be in love with you, Stiles."

"Because you're afraid of hurting me?" he asked, his eyebrows raising. "Because you're afraid that you're bad for me? Sage, the only reason that it hurts to breathe around you is because I know you don't think you are good enough. It physically hurts me to know that you honestly think you are not allowed to love anyone, and that you think you're supposed to live your life alone all because of what happened to your family and Aiden. You've been trying so hard to keep your heart from loving people, but the only thing you're doing is destroying the part that makes you human. I love you, and that's not going to change just because you aren't my girlfriend."

Stiles felt his chest heave, the spilled words that fell from his mouth having been hidden for so long behind his tongue. They were the words that he imagined saying to her every single time they were standing next to each other, every single time someone mentioned her name, and every time he let the reality that he couldn't kiss her or love her the way that he desperately wanted to sink too far into his skull. She wasn't his. He didn't have her heart, and that was the most annoying thing in the world for him.

The worst part of it all was seeing how broken she was. He had been through hell in his nightmares, had finally realized why his fate was sealed from the moment he saw the blonde that first day of sophomore year, and yet his entire life revolved around the determination he had to fix her. The fact that she didn't even believing she could cry, the action being so obvious as he watched her in front of him, proved that she was losing who she used to be. Stiles knew that he couldn't love her without destroying himself, just as much as she knew that she couldn't love him without losing herself. They were never meant for love, and yet they fell anyway.

Clenching down hard on her jaw, Sage refused to break. "Why does it hurt so much?"

"Because you never liked emotions," Stiles decided, trying his best to contain the swallowed words that he was keeping down for the sake of both of their bleeding hearts, realizing that the most lethal weapon at this point was the love they couldn't have for each other.

"They're messy."

He stared at her, watching as she regained herself in the split second that she had and knew it was something he would never be capable of doing. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" Sage asked, her brows furring in confusion.

"Stay strong."

The blonde found a laugh bubbling up in her chest, releasing her hold on his hand so that she could rub her eyes. There wasn't much humor in the question itself, more so the fact that Stiles actually believed she was capable of being strong when she didn't even know how to properly recover from anything. The only thing she did know was that this was murder, that sitting here and listening to a boy she loves confess that he knew she couldn't love him was just a brutally in the worst form, and she didn't know how much more of it she could take before she completely gave up on her heart all together.

Slowly letting her hands fall from her face, running them through her hair, she gave him a weak smile. "You become strong because there is nothing else to be in a town like this. The moment you become too weak, or you let yourself believe things will be alright, someone dies— and I can't survive another death, Stiles. It will kill me. So, the stronger people think I am, the sooner I am to believe it."

"What happens when you can't be strong anymore?" he asked, the question deriving from something deep inside of him that knew it was a necessary answer. "What happens when you don't know how to be strong anymore?"

"Then, I guess, you let your demons win and lose yourself in the process."

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