Archive of Our Own

Prologue

The road is dry but his eyes are not. He can’t see much other than the brightness of the headlights on his jeep. The world he’s driving through is a blur and he doesn’t notice it flashing past faster and faster because there is a crushing weight on his heart, his stomach twisting itself in knots as the last week drags itself across the forefront of his mind.

He chokes out a sob as be bites on his knuckle to stifle the sound, the other hand on the steering wheel.

Why?

Why did everything in his worst nightmares occur all within the same seven days? Couldn’t it have been spread out in a year, or a month?

Why did this happen to him? He’s made his mistakes, but his husband tried to make him stay in the house, where the walls were closing in on him, about to crush his bones to dust. He needed to get out and that man tried to stop him.

Stupid, stupid arguing that didn’t mean anything to either of them but they were both angry and both grieving and he just couldn’t –

He couldn’t see much through the tears.

So the corner was missed.

And the tree got a hug.

)o()o(

When he woke up the first time, everything was dark. He couldn’t hear much and noise was muffled, as if cotton balls had been stuffed in his ears. It was like he was underwater as someone was trying to speak to him, their voice furious and desperate at the same time. He was pretty sure he opened his eyes because he wouldn’t be able to see the darkness of the world if he didn’t, but it was like everything was numb.

He couldn’t feel anything.

After that. . .

Well, everything was dark. For a while anyway.

He floated in the void of nothing, not really aware of anything. He didn’t know who he was, so he couldn’t be frightened by the thought of never resurfacing. Nothing in his surroundings was scary, for the fact that he couldn’t remember what being scared felt like. He couldn’t remember anything, but because he didn’t know what fear was, he didn’t understand the constricting feeling in the area he’d imagine his chest to be in.

All he knew was that the darkness was comfortable.

Then everything changed.

He feels a warm pressure in the palm of his hand, squeezing tighter occasionally. The pressure shakes too, as if there is something attached to it that is trembling. Why is it shaking? Actually, a better question: why is there a pressure on his hand?

A babble, like the murmuring of noise, reaches his ears, penetrating the darkness in his mind until it coaxes him out of the void, pulling, as if a string had gripped onto his heart and tugs gently, coaxing him from the comforting embrace of sleep.

There is a hitch in the noise. A throat closing up, choking on their words as the person tries to say something but fails on the way.

He doesn’t know what to do. He would flex his hand to tell them that he was awake, but he doesn’t know which muscle it is. He doesn’t know what part in his brain helps with movement of body parts.

He doesn’t know how he even understands what a body part is, how can he be expected to use the flaming thing. He tries to tense everything at once, but nothing happens. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t shift in the soft cloud he’s in. None of his facilities even twitch. So what can he do to get the attention of whoever has hold of his hand? His left hand to be specific.

He tries moving his eyes, he tries moving his tongue, his eyebrows, his lips. He tries everything, but he can’t do it. Nothing is working.

Suddenly there is a pressure behind his eyelids, a kind of stinging if you will, as if something is filling up behind them. Is it blood? But it doesn’t hurt. It wells up behind his lids, and spills over, falling down his temple and to his hair. They don’t stop.

His chest hurts, constricting, and he doesn’t know why.

There is that murmur again, something urgent this time. A call of a name. But whose name is it? What is a name?

More noise. Why is there so much noise? He just needs to work out how his muscles work, then he can tell whoever is making so much noise to be quiet for God’s sake. He’s working through some stuff.

The warm touch of soft hands brushes his face, his forehead, his hair. There’s a pressure, like the thumb of the hand on his temple, wiping away the moisture that was still escaping from his eyes.

That name is called again and he doesn’t understand why. What is this person saying?

More voices arrive and he just wants them to be quiet, please. He needs to figure this out himself. He needs to work out how a body moves, how it actually works. He needs to understand without any help. He can’t have any help. He just can’t.

There are hands on his arms, clutching onto him as if they are trying to get him to move. He would, if he knew how.

But there is a heaviness on his eyes then, something to focus on, something to know where the muscles for his eyes are, something to link moving that, the thing he’s been trying to do for what feels like hours. He concentrates on his eye lids, on moving them up and down, twitching the delicate skin to even crack them open the tiniest bit. And it works.

His lids flutter against the hands on his face, butterflying against the pads of the fingers that are now retreating, allowing him to make use of being able to see.

At first, there is nothing but white, nothing but the brightness of a place too good for him. There is nothing but blinding light, and he wants to close his eyes again, but he stubbornly keeps them trained on the ceiling. Slowly, the world comes into clarity, the general blurriness of the ceiling making way for straight, symmetrical rectangles with lights replacing them at regular intervals. There are holes in the squares. A lot of them, and for a second he wants to count them, see how many there are. But he doesn’t know what numbers are.

There is a dark face, but not really, because it is the hair that is dark and the eyebrows, but the eyes are not. They are a lot of colours, all beautiful, and the skin is fair, doesn’t look like it’s seen too much sun in its life. It is a beautiful face, one associated as being attractive, but he doesn’t know that.

He blinks his eyes, the lashes fanning as they move, his eyes fixed on the face in front of him. The eyebrows are meeting together in the middle, a small line between them and the mouth is quivering, the chin shaking. Those multi-coloured eyes are covered in a layer of tears.

The mouth says something, but he doesn’t understand what is said. The teeth meet, the lips open, then there is the appearance of a pink tongue, then the mouth stills. It is done again. Then it says something else, but he just blinks, not comprehending. What is being said?

“Stiles, Stiles, Stiles. . .” the murmuring is confusing, like a mantra that he has never heard before. What is a Stiles? “Please, say something. Blink, squeeze my hand, I don’t care. Anything!”

It sounds desperate.

“Stiles, please, can you hear me?” The man begs, a line of water trailing from the wet eyes and down the cheeks, falling to a dark shrub of hair on the lower half of his face. “Answer me!”

Why is he desperate?

“I don’t think he can, Mr Hale,” Something else is said from somewhere else in the room, but he still doesn’t understand the words.

He feels his throat constricting with the effort of trying to make a noise similar to what they’re saying, but nothing other than the parting of his lips is the consequence of his efforts.

He tries harder pushing air out of his lungs, creating some kind of humming noise. He doesn’t know what he’s trying to do. Get the attention of whoever he’s with? Or trying to prove that he doesn’t remember how to speak?

The noise stops, his lungs running out of air, so he struggles to pull in another litre, before continuing with the only noise he knows how to make.

“If you can hear me Stiles,” The man with more beard than stubble whispers quietly, his thumb running circles on the back of his own, the man’s other hand resting gently on his face, his voice soft. “I love you, okay? I love you so much and no matter if you don’t want to talk to me again because of what I said before – “ His voice breaks. “Before the crash, I’ll always love you. Just remember that.”

The humming hasn’t stopped but he tries to close his throat with his tongue on the exhale of air from his lungs to try and do what they’re doing with theirs. His lips tremble with the effort of movement suddenly. He realises he knows how it works.

“Hgn,” he whines pathetically, his hands clenching into fists finally, effortless even after searching for the right muscles the whole time. “Hmmgn. . .”

He can’t say anything more than that, despite his best efforts to do so, but it seems to be enough for them. The man smiles happily, joyous in something Stiles doesn’t understand and he watches the muscles in the man’s face, his own mouth twitching in the effort to replicate the gesture.

He feels his eyes droop, suddenly tired, as if he had run three marathons in a row. He closes his eyes on the mumbling of the man in the white coat and the caring man with the beautiful eyes.

)o()o(

He wakes up the second time more aware of his surroundings. This time there’s no hand coaxing him from the dark, the man is not there the second time. There are no distinct voices in the room, annoying him as he tries to figure out how moving even works. He doesn’t know why.

He clenches his fists, curls his toes in the white sheets and arches his back off the bed, stretching the muscles because he knows how to. The bed creaks under the movement, metallic and irritating, but recedes when he collapses back against the bed. He lifts his hand so he can look at it, his arm struggling to understand the command, and as it’s rising, here is a twinge in the crease of his elbow and on the back of his hand. His hand is now in front of his face and he views it from every angle, looking at the thing taped to his hand. He uses his other hand to try and peel the tape off, but that causes his body to react, jerking away from the sharp pain, just at the tip of the thing.

He doesn’t know what it it but he lowers his arms and leaves it alone.

The room itself is simple, generic, but there are flowers and balloons on the bedside table. For a second he wanders if there’s a garden in his room, from how brightly coloured they are. It must be a garden party, because balloons don’t grow in the ground. But then he realises they’re there for him, because he’s the only one in the room and despite not being able to remember exactly where he knows the little titbit of information came from, he knows it’s kind to leave gifts to someone that is sick.

It’s a little unnerving, knowing something but not knowing how he knows that. And there’s some confusion if he ever did encounter any. Has he?

He sits up slightly, leaning on his elbows despite the struggle to move anything. It’s not that he’s sore, it’s the kind of weakness from his body not really understanding the movement his brain is telling them to do. The sunlight from the window flits through the blinds, leaving little strips of brightness on the blue floor.

Pushing harder on his hands, he manages to sit up and turn on the bed, the sheets slipping from his legs. He doesn’t notice the cold, mainly because he doesn’t realise it’s cold he’s feeling. He moves all the sheets out the way and gazes at his pale, sparsely haired legs, the weirdly shaped feet, before flexing his muscles and standing up.

He grins to himself, even as his legs buckle like a baby giraffe and he falls to the floor in a heap of tangled limbs and straying blue gown. Luckily the things in his body are connected with the weird machine by a long enough cord that they don’t fling out of him, but the other machine beeps out of control. The thing on his finger had fallen off.

He stares at it for a second, wandering exactly what it was measuring, before trying to stand back up with limited success. He gives up after a second and opts to look at the door through the space under the bed for anyone that might come in, even walk past so they can help him get back on the bed where he’s assuming he’s meant to be.

Sure enough, one pair of feet hurry into the room, pausing for a fraction of a second, presumably looking at the empty bed, before realising he’s on the other side of it on the floor.

The nurse comes around the bed and takes him in, with his wide, confused eyes and lost look about him.

“Are you alright?” she asks immediately, crouching down and checking him over for any injuries. She finds the finger thing and clips it back on. Seeing his questioning looks she says, “It’s to monitor you heart rate.”

She points to the one in the back of his hand, “This one is your morphine drip.”

The one in his elbow is for nutrients, but he doesn’t need that because he’s apparently awake enough to feed himself, right?

He nods hesitantly, going with his muscle memory how to answer that question.

Eventually they manage to get him back tucked under the warm blankets. She checks all his vitals while she’s at it, asking him some questions.

“We want to make sure you’re all healthy and recovering before we send you home, Stiles,” she tells him, smiling kindly, but it falls at his silence.

“Stiles?” she repeats, clicking her pen and tucking it in her breast pocket. She places the clipboard down. “Do you know what happened?”

He considers it for a moment. Does he know? He knows there was an accident of some sort; the man from before said something about a crash. He shakes his head slowly, instinctively knowing that’s the generic for no.

The nurse frowns, “Do you know where you are?”

Another shake of the head.

“Do you know the date?”

Shake.

“What’s your name, Stiles?” the nurse asked, her eyes seeming to search for something in his own. He can’t answer; he doesn’t remember.

She takes his silence as answer enough, though. Biting her lip in worry, she looks towards the door, then turns back to him, “I need to go and talk to someone, okay? You need to stay here and don’t fall off the bed again, alright?”

He nods his head, smiling at her as she her eyes flutter shut, fighting against something. What, he doesn’t know, but he watches as she strides with purpose out the door.

He stays there for what he thinks is minutes before she is back again, this time a triad of people following her. The man from before is there, looking more distressed than any of the others. He wanders why that doctor looks sadder than the others.

Watching them is weird, seeing as they’re watching him in return, listening to the woman recount what had already gone down in this room not three minutes ago. He supresses his giggle barely. Every face of the three doctor’s crumbles, none more so than the dark haired man’s.

He smiles warmly at them, his throat working to say something, something one of the others said, from when he awoke the second time, the one before this one. “Sssss. . .tiiii’s,” is all he manages of that strange thing people keep addressing him as. He doesn’t understand the looks on the other people’s faces. He doesn’t understand the concept of concern on the man with the white coat’s face, doesn’t process the look of heartbreak on the woman’s face and can’t comprehend the look of complete and utter devastation on the dark haired man’s from earlier.

“How are you feeling, Stiles?” The one with the white coat asks after a period of nothing but silence and the noise of someone struggling to breathe. He suspects it’s the one with the dark hair. His eyes look a little shiny.

Stiles (he’s pretty sure that’s his name now. Why would they be addressing him with that if it wasn’t?) shrugs his shoulders, his throat working, “G-g-g-g’d.”

He smiles tightly, “Good?”

Stiles nods his head, thankful the doctor understood what he was trying to say. Words are coming back to him, but his muscles still aren’t working properly. He doesn’t know why.

“Do you know who I am?” The dark haired one cuts his, his voice desperate. Stiles looks at him closely. This is obviously an important question and if Stiles messes it up this man is going to be very sad.

He thinks he’s got it right. “D-d-d-ct’r?”

The man’s face shatters and loses its colour, pale skin taking over, accentuating the darkness of his hair. The man sobs out a breath, takes one last look at Stiles’ open, honest face and walks out the door, shoulders shaking.

The other three stare forlornly at his receding figure, before turning back to Stiles.

“Hello, Stiles,” the one that hadn’t said anything yet says. “My name is Dr Morrell, can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

And Stiles says darkness.

)o()o(

Derek feels as if his heart will die inside his chest. It feels as if it already has. He wouldn’t be surprised if it had, he feels a little dead, like a part of himself had died alongside the memories Stiles had lost.

Stiles doesn’t know who he is. Stiles doesn’t know who Derek is. Stiles doesn’t know.

He feels as if it is his fault. If only he had not argued with Stiles about what he had. He doesn’t even remember what it was about, but regrets it so utterly and deeply that it would hurt himself to take it back, to have Stiles, the one that remembers all the dates, all the bickering, all the laughter they had ever shared, back in his arms, holding him tightly and never let go. But he can’t do that. It doesn’t work like that.

It never has worked like that.

He walks with numb steps, leaving that memory-less man that was once his husband in the bed, not knowing who had just left the room. His feet meet the floor each meter he walks, but he doesn’t acknowledge the other people rushing around him. He is numb to everything.

Eventually, he makes it back to the waiting room, where the rest of them are waiting patiently for news, their normally loud voices strangely silent as they wait for Derek’s return from wherever the nurse had directed him.

It’s Scott who stands up, ready for news, any news about Stiles. The rest of them follow suit, waiting for Derek to say something. A second passes, their faces falling at the devastation that is as clear as day on his face, the silence as Derek stares at the floor, his eyes stinging as tears roll down his cheeks.

“Oh, God,” Scott breathes. “Please, God, no – “

“He’s alive,” Derek whispers. “He’s fine, no lasting physical injuries.”

All of them exhale, their held breath being let go simultaneously. But Scott doesn’t, he locks eyes with Derek.

“There’s something else, Derek,” Scott says. “What is it?”

Derek closes his eyes.

He looks up at Scott.

“He doesn’t remember anything.”

)o()o(

Stiles lays in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, counting the little holes in the squares.

One. . .Two. . .Three. . .

. . .Four. . .

. . . . . .Fiiive?

Er. . .Six!

. . .what?

He sighs as be begins again, counting from the corner closest to him and working his way across. At least he tries to because he’s been stuck on the first damn row and he hasn’t even got a quarter of the way through and he really wants to count things. Count anything. His fingers, his toes, the heart machine that beeps constantly on a repetitive streak that never fucking stops.

The holes in the squares of the ceiling that he has been staring at for the last couple of hours, but can’t seem to get far enough.

The doctors don’t know what to do. They’re trying to get Stiles to remember things on his own with no prompting, but nothing is working. He doesn’t remember how to count and he feels like his heart is going to squeeze out of his chest and his stomach is twisting itself in knots, as if fighting to find its way out of his body. Stiles doesn’t understand the concept of frustration, anxiety and worry, and the panic doesn’t end.

The dark haired man hasn’t returned since that first time and Stiles wanders what he had said wrong so the doctor never returned. Was it some medical reference that he had pronounced wrong?

One. . .Two. . .Three. . .Four. . .Five. . .Six. . .What comes after six?

Stiles wracks his brain, for anything that might give him a clue. He finds nothing. Closing his eyes, he exhales and starts tapping his fingers. Thumb: One. Pointer: Two. Middle: Three. Ring: Four. Pinky: Five. Other hand’s thumb: Six. Other hand’s pointer: Something else.

Stiles whines in frustration, clenching his hands so his nails dig into his palm. He can’t do it. He doesn’t know what comes after six. What is it?

His heart rate monitor bleeps faster and Stiles tries to get it to slow, but his panic at not remembering what comes after six is making him hyperventilate, because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t bloody know anything.

“Stiles!” a man calls from the doorway. “It’s alright, buddy. Just breathe.”

Stiles turns his head towards the voice and sees a man with dark brown hair and brown eyes, his skin a pretty golden colour and his jaw slightly crooked. Who - ?

“Take a breath,” the man instructs and Stiles sucks in a pull of air. “Hold it.”

Stiles stops the oxygen escaping and he can already feel the panic subsiding, falling behind and leaving his head. He does this a few more times until he can think about numbers and his breath doesn’t hitch.

“Hey, buddy,” the man greets, his grin sad. “How are you?”

Stiles’ throat bobs and he licks his lips, “N’mb’r aft’r S’x?”

The man pauses on his way to Stiles’ bed. “What’s the number after six?” he clarifies.

Stiles nods.

“Seven,” he says.

Stiles turns his head back to the ceiling and begins counting again.

One. . .Two. . .Three. . .Four. . .Five. . .Six. . .Seven. . .Stiles grins in triumph, but falters when he realises he can’t continue. He turns back to the man expectantly.

“Eight,” he says after a second of confusion. “Then there’s nine, then ten. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. . .”

Stiles counts along with him, matching whatever number he says to the next hole in the ceiling. They reach the last hole at number one hundred and Stiles beams. He begins counting them in his head again. He knows now how to count, and by consequence, how many holes are in the ceiling tiles. He starts laughing with delight.

He calms after a while of laughing and gazes at the man who can count really well.

“Hi, my. . .N-name isss. . .Ssstiles,” He introduces himself. “Who ‘r y-you?”

The man smiles lopsidedly, “I’m Scott McCall. Do you know who I am?”

Stiles shakes his head and Scott’s face deflates minutely, but he steels himself.

“Well, do you know your memory loss isn’t normal?”

“I do, Sscott McCawl,” Stiles confirms, trying out the name on his tongue so it becomes familiar to him a bit more. He doesn’t think he says it correctly.

“Scott Mc-Call, it’s pronounced,” the man prompts kindly and Stiles tries it out until he gets it right. “Anyway,” he says. “Your memories from before are gone, but the people who knew you are not. Did you know that?”

Stiles shrugs his shoulders.

“Well, I was your best friend, Stiles,” Scott tells him. “We’ve known each other since we were four years old, but I’m not going to tell you where so that if you do remember, and you mention it, I’ll know you’re remembering something.”

Stiles is sceptical that would ever work but goes along with it anyway and Scott McCall tells Stiles about all the people he knew from before.

There is a girl with strawberry blond hair, green eyes and is smarter than any of their other friends. Scott says that Stiles used to think he was in love with her but somewhere between sophomore year and senior he discovered they were better off as friends. Now they have lunch dates every week in wind, rain or shine. Her name is Lydia Martin.

Isaac Lahey is a tall boy with blond curls and blue eyes. He looks like a soft teddy bear and is actually a soft teddy bear on the inside. He had a bad childhood and is now living with Scott’s mother. Isaac and Stiles are friends that like to play games together every second Sunday of every month because they’re all too busy otherwise.

Erica Reyes is scary all the time and once knocked him out with a part of his own car. She is blond and beautiful but hates when people look at her too long. Erica owns a world famous business that none of their friends understand. Erica was once epileptic, but the treatment has been going really good and she can drive on her own. She lives in New York.

Boyd is the definition of tall, dark and handsome. He’s quiet but menacing, suborn to a fault and doesn’t take anyone’s shit. Boyd is like the personal body guard for their friends and Scott is sure he and Erica have something going on, but Scott really doesn’t want to ask them in fear of being castrated by Erica.

Jackson is an arse, but does actually like his friends.

Allison is Scott’s wife and Stiles never wanted to know that much about a person ever.

Kira is everyone’s friends and is so badass with a sword she can slice anything moving. Seriously, Stiles, she’s like a freaking ninja with that thing.

Scott doesn’t say much about Derek Hale. But he apparently gets this face where his eyebrows pull together and his face pulls tight, his eyes drooping into sad little raindrops and that’s when you know there’s something wrong.

Nothing what Scott says pulls something from Stiles’ brain that helps him remember them. They are like strangers to him, people he has never known, people he knows nothing about. Stiles tries to remember them, tries out their names in his mouth so see if they trigger some kind of muscle memory but he gets nothing but the bittersweet taste of loss and sadness. Stiles wishes so badly that he could remember them because they sound so nice and good, but doesn’t. He doesn’t remember them.

“It’s alright, Stiles,” Scott says, sitting on the seat next to the hospital bed. “You don’t need to remember everything about them to be their friends again. We’ll just start over, okay?”

“I like the sssound of th-th-that,” Stiles grins at Scott, the only one that seems to understand that he just can’t remember anything. He hopes he does, though. Oh god he hopes.

“Scott,” A stern voice calls from the doorway. “I thought I said visiting hours were over.”

Scott appears sheepish and stands from the seat, “Sorry, I’ll go now.” He looks towards Stiles, “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Sure, Scott McCall,” Stiles replies.

He leaves.

)o()o(

The doctors call it Retrograde Amnesia, which means he remembers nothing from before the accident, but his short term memory is working just as it should be and he can retain new information, new memories, for his long term memory. It’s a severe case, the most severe one they’ve seen in a long while.

They say that they’re not sure he’ll ever get his memories back, but he’s making progress re-learning how to speak, count, spell, move around. He’s beginning to understand certain concepts like family, anxiety, love and annoyance. He can count past one hundred and could probably count past a thousand if he wanted to. He doesn’t stutter over his words anymore and likes to ramble a lot to make up for his lack of talking. Scott says he never used to do that, he was quieter, more relaxed and didn’t really care that other people thought he was shy. He used to be the silent one.

Now he can’t stop talking.

“So, then I said to Doctor Morrell, she’s my psychiatrist did I tell you that? I don’t remember properly if I did but I don’t think that’s from my memory loss I think it’s from normal memory malfunction that everyone gets, so don’t report it I’m fine. Anyway, I said to Doctor Morrell that I think Lydia and I are on the way to being friends again, but she keeps telling me that I talk so much now that she can’t get a word in, and I don’t really understand that but I like talking so why should I stop. Lydia’s great, you know? Super smart, like genius IQ and everything and I understand why I liked her before the accident because she is a goddess. And Dr Morrell said that I often said that before because she sort of knew me before, did you know that? But, Scotty-boy, Lydia is a Goddess and I want to be friends with her forever!” Stiles takes a deep breath, “What do you think?”

“I think that’s good, Stiles,” Scott replies, now used to Stiles’ babbling. Stiles really likes Scott because Scott brings him curly fries which he liked before and likes now, which is understandable because curly fries are brilliant and awesome and Stiles would eat them every day if he could. “Does Lydia know this?”

“Duh, Scott! She’s the first one I told! But she said something about Derek being jealous which I didn’t understand at all because I’ve never met Derek. In fact, I’ve met everyone but Derek, which is weird because everyone keeps talking about him except you which is also weird – “

“You have met Derek, Stiles,” Scott interjects, confused. “He went in when the nurse first told us about the memory loss.”

Stiles pulls a face, “No, there were only four medical personnel in the room – “

“Stiles, only three staff members went in there,” Scott says carefully, scanning Stiles’ face.

Stiles is silent, remembering the looks of disappointment on each person’s face, but the one with the dark hair and pretty green eyes was the most devastated of all. He had that look on his face that Scott had described about Derek last week. Stiles didn’t know that Derek was in the room, he just thought he was another Doctor.

“I thought he was a doctor, Scott,” Stiles whispers.

“It’s alright, you didn’t know him then,” Scott says. “You couldn’t have known – “

“But I didn’t recognise him Scott,” Stiles protests. “I didn’t know who he was and you should have seen the look on his face – “

“I did. He came out that room and told me you didn’t remember anything. Not a thing and he didn’t know what to do. I mean, Stiles. He asked me how he could help you when you didn’t know what he was to you. He just – “

“What is he to me?” Stiles interrupts suddenly. For some reason that stood out to him, that Scott would say what he was to Stiles and not who. “How did I know him before?”

Scott hesitates.

“Tell, me Scott,” Stiles hisses, leaning forwards. “Who is he?”

“He was – is – your husband.”

Stiles sucks in a breath. Oh, God. He called his husband his Doctor. “But he hasn’t come to see me. It’s not like I died.”

“You did, though,” Scott says. “I mean the you from before died. Your personality is completely different, Stiles. Your favourite things are different, your taste in music has changed. We used to like the same thing but you like old songs by Queen and The Rolling Stones, you used to hate pineapple on your pizza, but you can’t have enough of it now.”

“But you still like me!” Stiles points out desperately.

“For a while there I didn’t know if I could, Stiles. Because the man I have known most of my life, who made a weird ass speech at my wedding, who stopped me from making stupid decisions and who I stopped from making stupid decisions is not here anymore. You are. And for a while I hoped that that man would resurface, that you would remember something, but after getting to know you, I realise you still have a good heart and it’s not the quietness that I was friends with, it was you.”

Stiles feels his eyes watering and tears falling down his cheeks.

“Stiles, Derek hasn’t been here because he is grieving for his dead husband.”

)o()o(

He comes to see Stiles again nearly three months after he woke up.

He’s watching cartoons on the tiny television hanging from the ceiling, just off centre of one of the squares with the one hundred holes in it. It’s some weird show about a pig called Peppa and her little brother George, Momma pig and Dadda pig. They like splashing in muddy puddles and –

Stiles clicks the next button and the news appears. Next, baseball. Next some bad teen movie about over cliché concepts that make Stiles cringe. Stiles watches it anyway.

He throws the remote on the bed between his legs and sits back to watch it. It’s incredibly irritating.

“Oh, you idiot!” Stiles shouts at the girl kissing the world famous singer. “Never kiss someone with money, they’re selfish and I don’t know how I know that I just do! No, don’t – Oh, that’s right, smile at her you ding dong! Aaaand, there we go rejection – “

“You did like getting angry at crappy shows,” a voice says sadly from the doorway. Stiles whips around and all the air in his lungs leaves him in a whoosh. Stiles is pretty sure his mouth is hanging open.

Derek looks very different from what he looked like when Stiles mistook him for a Doctor. On his shoulders is a leather jacket and he’s wearing loose jeans. Stiles looks at feet and sees Converse shoes, black. His hair is slightly messy as if his hand had been running through it over and over again. The pretty green eyes are bloodshot.

“Well at least I know you’re not a Doctor this time,” Stiles blurts, then recoils. “Shit, I’m sorry! That happens sometimes, I say the first thing that comes to my mind and I have no brain to mouth filter and I’m making this worse aren’t I because I always do that too which is awkward for everyone. Feel free to shut me up any time – “

“It’s fine,” Derek interrupts, glaring off to the side, but the skin around his eyes is tense and Stiles deflates. He never wanted to make Derek sadder.

“No, it’s not, but I’ll take your word on it,” Stiles says. He looks to the TV and turns it off. The silence is resounding and makes the beating of his own heart louder somehow and the traffic outside blaringly so. Stiles turns it back on.

Derek just stands there, his arms held awkwardly at his sides and Stiles feels weird just looking at him.

“You can sit if you want,” Stiles prompts, gesturing to the seat next to his bed that’s probably closer than it should be.

He nods and walks to it, hesitating before pulling it slightly away and sitting in it. Derek fists his jeans in his hands and coughs slightly.

“Scott said I should talk to you,” he says.

Stiles doesn’t really know what to say, “Scott is a smart man, Derek, I’m glad you took his advice.”

“Said that you know who I am now.”

“Yeah,” Stiles replies. “We’re married or something. But I don’t really understand all that. Marriage. I’m still having trouble distinguishing between platonic and not so you’ll have to forgive me for being a bit confused.”

This seems to make Derek sad.

“I mean I think I’m getting better! Lydia is definitely my friend because we laugh at stupid people together while I’m technically about three months old with simple concepts but I know the English language pretty well considering I didn’t even know the meaning of considering three weeks ago. I didn’t know how to count past six until Scott helped me count to a hundred and I know all the way up to a thousand now, which is awesome. I know multiplication and the Doctors are optimistic that I’ll be able to catch up to where I was before within the next five months, but that’s if I try really hard.” Stiles winces, “I’m making this worse, aren’t I?”

Derek nods stiffly, ducking his head.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says in a small voice. “I don’t try to make it worse.”

“I know that Stiles,” His voice cracks and Stiles just stares at the top of his head and the counter clockwise hair swirl.

“Did you know that, statistically, it’s more likely for a gay man to have a counter clockwise hair whorl than not?” Stiles fills in the silence with an unhelpful fact that he read on the internet. The internet is Stiles’ favourite thing in the world after curly fries.

Derek lifts his head and stares at Stiles’ worried face, “Really?”

“Yeah!” Stiles says eagerly, sitting up. “And did you know the oldest condoms ever found date back to the 1640s and were made from animal and fish intestines? And- and the loneliest creature on Earth is a whale who has been calling out for a mate for over two decades – but whose high-pitched voice is so different to other whales that they never respond! How cool is that?” Stiles falters, “Unfortunately for the whale. Poor guy. Or girl because I don’t want to be sexist.”

“. . .How do you know this?” Derek asks as if slightly afraid of the answer.

“The internet!” Stiles grins excitedly. “Buzzfeed, but you don’t need to know that.”

Derek looks like he’s going to smile but seems to realise something and his face falls. He sighs, “Stiles, Scott seems to think it’s a good idea that you stay with me when you leave the hospital.” He fiddles with a loose thread on his jeans and Stiles’ eye is drawn to the movement for a second, before dashing back up to his face. “But you don’t know me and – “

“No!” Stiles shouts and Derek’s eyebrows shoots to his hairline. “I mean, that’s alright. If that’s the best slash only option, I’ll be happy to stay with you if only to get to know the only person from before that I haven’t got to know properly.”

“I’m sorry, Stiles, I just – “ Derek struggles.

“It’s alright, Derek, Scott said you were grieving and I understand that concept. How there are five stages of it and the last one is acceptance, but I don’t think you want to hear about that right now,” Stiles smiles quickly. “The question is: will you be comfortable living with a ghost with no memories?”

Derek falters at Stiles’ choice of words, “What?”

“I mean, I might look like your husband, but my memories of us are gone. I don’t remember what we did. I don’t remember the wedding, or any dates we might have gone on, or if I’ve met your parents, or if – “

Stiles clamps his mouth shut because he knows he’s rambling again and he doesn’t want to upset Derek with anything he may say by accident. He doesn’t want Derek to hate him.

“Talk if you want, Stiles,” Derek says. “It’s who you are now.”

So of course Stiles can’t find anything to say and stays silent. Stiles licks his lips, wetting them with a coat of saliva before standing from the bed, adjusting the pair of sweats and jumper he’s wearing so they’re not as twisted. He gathers the IV tube stand and pulls it towards him.

“Alright,” he says. “We are going for a walk.”

Derek is startled, “Sorry?”

“Apology accepted,” Stiles replies absently as he gently takes Derek by the hand and dragging him out the room. He comes along easily, following Stiles even as he reluctantly peels his hand away from Derek’s. Stiles walks slowly through the winding halls of the hospital, the cold floor not quite getting through his thick socks that Scott got for him a couple of days ago. They’re blue with little space ships on them and Stiles loves them to death.

Derek doesn’t say anything for the first ten minutes of the walk and neither does Stiles, but that’s okay, Stiles hums along to a song that has been stuck in his head for a long while. Something about. . .

“I threw a wish in the well, don’t ask me I’ll never tell. I looked to you as it fell and now you’re in my way. . .” Stiles sings quietly. He really doesn’t know where it came from. “Pennies and dime for a kiss. . .Something. . .Something. . .Something. . .” He hums, moving his head as he closed his eyes trying to remember where it came from. He starts again.

“I threw a wish in the well, don’t ask me I’ll never tell. . .Where is that from,” Stiles shouts suddenly, jolting Derek from his broody silence. Stiles whips around to him. “C’mon help me here dude. It’s a song I’ve had in my head for a while, but I just don’t know where it’s from. It goes like. . .I threw a wish in the well, don’t ask me, I’ll never tell. I looked to you as if fell and now you’re in my way. Pennies and dimes for a kiss. . .but then I don’t remember anything after that and it’s frustrating because I think it sounds really nice and I’d like to finish it, I just – I just don’t remember!”

“You hated that song,” Derek says, surprised, hope shining in his eyes. He takes a breath, “You had it right, until you got to the pennies bit. I trade my soul for a wish, pennies and dimes for a kiss, I wasn’t looking for this, but now you’re in my way. . .Blah blah blah. . .” Derek is a really bad singer but then again, so is Stiles. And Stiles remembers it. He remembers the song.

“Your stare was holding, ripped jeans, skin was showing, hot night, wind was blowing, where you think you’re going baby?” Stiles laughs out loud and sings the song to the end, staring at the cream coloured wall of the corridors the whole time, a grin stuck on his face as his brain filled with weird lyrics about meeting someone for the first time. He sees a woman washing a car, dark haired, singing to him. There’s another man, shirtless, and the women falls from the car. Images flash across his brain, until the end where the man hands his number to another member of the girl’s band and walks away, smirking.

A music video Stiles remembers.

There are tears in his eyes, welling up and spilling over the edge and the wall is nothing but a blur in his vision. It goes in and out of focus as he replays the song in his head over and over again until it is engraved on his memory and he can’t let go of it. “Derek,” Stiles’ voice cracks, as he looks at the darker haired man with the pretty green eyes. “Derek, I remember Call Me Maybe.”

Derek looks like he wants to reach out for Stiles and hug him close, but he seems to hesitate, not quite believing.

“Scott, has never even mentioned that song and I know – I know - that I’ve never heard it before now,” Stiles gasps out a breath. “Derek, I’m remembering something and even if it’s something as simple as a dumb ass song, it’s something. I might get my memories back!”

Derek smiles, a wobbly one but a smile nonetheless and Stiles leaps to wrap his arms around Derek’s torso, squishing his arms to his sides. He holds on for a second too long probably, but when he lets go, Derek doesn’t look so sad. For the first time in three months, there’s finally hope.

)o()o(

Stiles moves into Derek’s house – their house, really – three months after remembering Call Me Maybe, which he hasn’t stopped singing since then. He’s been remembering more things, songs mostly, from before that he apparently liked but doesn’t find the appeal now. He was disgusted in himself when he remembered What Makes You Beautiful and tried desperately to eject it from his mind, but to no avail; it was stuck in there for days. It gives him the heebly geeblies, whenever he even thinks about it.

Derek picks him up from the hospital and the car ride there is both awkward and tense, mostly because all Stiles is remembering are songs. Songs he mostly doesn’t like, which means he hasn’t remembered his friends. He still doesn’t remember Derek.

Stiles looks out the window, his cheek resting on his hand, at the houses passing by. He’s never seen them before, but he’s sure he has, he just doesn’t recall it. Which is sad, because these houses are really nice and Stiles would look at them all day if he could.

“Why are we going through a nice neighbourhood?” Stiles asks, because why would they be? Surely they’re not rich enough to live here.

Derek’s jaw clenches minutely, “We live here.”

“Really? We live in a house that has more than four bedrooms? More than two bathrooms? Oh, my God! What do you do? What do I do?” Stiles gasps, “Are we an underground drug ring and that’s why – “

“No!” Derek interrupts, “No, I’m just – I work with – I’m a chef.”

Stiles turns slowly from looking out the window and stares at Derek. “Really?” Stiles is sceptical. He thought he might be a bouncer or something. “So you work in a kitchen bossing other people around to make really awesome food?”

“Yes,” is all Derek says.

“But. . .that doesn’t explain the house,” Stiles says slowly. “What do I do?”

Derek doesn’t answer him.

“Derek,” Stiles whines, impatient at Derek’s silence. “What’s my job? Am I a nurse? Am I an astronaut? That would be really cool, you know, being an astro – “

“Shut up,” Derek grits out.

Derek’s hands clench on the steering wheel but he doesn’t say anything else, so Stiles sighs and resumes looking out the window. They turn three corners before the silence grates on Stiles’ nerves.

“It would be really cliché if I get flashbacks when I’m asleep,” Stiles muses.

)o()o(

A boy’s face stares back at him, just as curious and open as his own. It’s rounded and clear in its youth, just like any child his age.

At four, Przemysław has begun to understand the concept of kindness, stubbornness, love and family from his parents, and cruelty, hatred and frustration from that meanie Jackson. Preschool has taught him a lot of things, like how to spell his name, but not how to pronounce it, how to count to ten, but now how to write it, how to ask nicely for things, but not how to ask why his brain runs on a loop constantly that never stops and how to be a good friend, but now how to make them.

“Hi, my name’s Przemysław Stilinski, can I have that tractor you’re playing with?” He asks, pointing his skinny, short pointer finger at the brightly coloured tractor that the brown haired boy his age has clutched in his hands.

The boy stares at him for a second before slowly handing him the truck that Przemysław had been eyeing off for a while. He quickly grabs the tractor, snatching up the cars he had been using and shoving them into the kid’s hands.

“Here, you can play with these,” Przemysław tells the boy in a loud voice as he drives the tractor over the roads he has carved in the sand for the cars that the boy now has instead, making the noises his mum’s car makes when she’s driving him to the ice-cream shop.

“I’m Scott,” the boy says.

Przemysław stops playing with the tractor and lifts his head to look at the boy – Scott – his eyes narrowing with suspicion. He leans forwards, towards Scott, nearly touching nose to nose before grinning.

“Hi Scott!” Przemysław whisper shouts. “Do you wanna play cars with me?”

“Okay,” Scott replies, somewhat bemused, before taking a car and driving along the made up road.

Surrounding them are more kids, having their own conversations about space ships and pirates, and what they’re going to do when they go home.

They are in a sandbox.

)o()o(

Stiles gasps awake, the image of four-year-old Scott still on the forefront of his mind. He shoves the covers back from his legs and hobbles out of the bed that is much comfier than the hospital bed that he’d been staying in for eleven months, flicking on the light switch as he stumbles out the room in his sleepy haze.

Making his way down the stairs and to the room that he knows has a phone, he rips it off the charger and dials Scott’s number. He waits.

“H’llo?” Scott’s sleepy voice greets him.

“Hi Scott!” Stiles whisper shouts. “It was a sandbox, wasn’t it?”

“Wha – ?” Scott mumbles through the rustling of sheets. “Stiles it’s two o’clock in the morning.”

Stiles glances up at the clock and – oh. Woopsie daisy. So it is.

“I’m sorry – it’s just,” Stiles takes a deep breath. “It was a sandbox, wasn’t it? When we first met each other, it was a sandbox, and I wanted that tractor you were playing with so I asked for it and gave you cars as a trade, and I introduced myself – “ Stiles realises something. “Wait, my name’s not actually Stiles?”

There is nothing but silence on the other end of the phone and Stiles wanders if Scott has fallen asleep again.

“I mean; I understand why I named myself Stiles. What kind of name is Przemysław, anyway? But Scott, I know where me first met! It was in a sandbox!”

“Stiles?”

Stiles jumps and spins around, the receiver clutched to his chest as his heart beats a mile a minute. There is nothing but a dark shadow and Stiles doesn’t know who it is and almost starts screaming, but a light is flicked on and Derek’s exhausted face stares back at him, worried.

“I remembered something else,” Stiles blurts after a minute of silence.

Derek’s eyebrows rise in surprise.

“But it was just where I met Scott for the first time,” Stiles continues. “It was a sandbox, by the way, in case you were wandering, unless I’ve already told you, in which case ignore me, and anything I might say. I’ll just assume you already know it, if I do remember anything else – “

“ – iles? Stiles are you there? Stiles!” Scott muffled voice calls from the phone on his chest. Stiles fumbles with the phone for a second, before bringing it to his ear.

“Yo’ Scott!” Stiles says breathlessly. “It was a sandbox wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Scott puffs out. Stiles thinks he might be rubbing his eyes in frustration and Stiles finally realizes Scott must have been sleeping. It’s not his fault he’d forgotten what other people’s sleep means to them. He’s like a three-year-old that refuses to sleep in his own bed and wakes his parents up every night as he crawls into their bed at midnight, making them exhausted in the morning, too tired to face the day with a smile.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles mumbles into the phone, the floor suddenly very interesting. “I’ll let you sleep.”

“It’s alright, I’ll - “ Scott begins.

“No, no, no, I’ll let you go now,” Stiles insists, pulling the phone away and looking for the end call button.

“No – Stiles – “ Scott protests, but Stiles hangs up and puts the phone back on the charger.

Stiles sighs as he turns to Derek, looking at the bruises under his half lidded eyes and the tussled dark hair. He wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up the whole bloody neighborhood.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Stiles worries his bottom lip between his teeth, fiddling with the pajama strings on his pants.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Just – go back to bed, you need to rest.”

Stiles whines – honest to goodness, whines – “But, I’ve been resting for months, Derek, months!”

Derek blinks dumbly for a couple of seconds, then his face deflates. His mouth thins and he turns around to climb the stairs to the bedroom he’s sleeping in.

Stiles stares after him wandering what it was he said.

)o()o(

Memories filter in slowly, about his childhood and his experiences to particular events like that time he fell out of a tree because he’d dared himself to and consequently broke his leg, resulting in a cast for six weeks, or that time he ran away from home because his mother threatened to take away his favorite shirt if he didn’t do his chores.

But nothing, no more memories of Scott, or Lydia, or Jackson, or Allison, or Kira, or anyone else other than little tidbits of information that he blurts out without realising he actually knew the fact. Like how Scott had asthma, Lydia has this weird thing when she can just tell if something’s wrong, or Kira really likes foxes, or how Jackson was always an arsehole to Scott and Stiles until Stiles saved his sorry arse from getting run over by a truck in senior year.

The hole in his brain that he just knows Derek used to take up is not being filled, which not only sounds strange when he says it out loud, but creepy and psychotic, so the first time he said it, he zipped his mouth shut and tried to never say it again, because it implied that Derek was filling him up, somehow, which –

Stiles is not ready to understand the concept of. . .That. . .just yet, thank you very much. He’s ten years old in that aspect. Incredibly ignorant to information he doesn’t want to know about. Really doesn’t want to know about.

The pavement under his feet is warm for October, and the sun pleasantly caressing – look at him using big words to describe simple words. He’s a fucking genius if you as him - the back of his neck as he strolls through the neighbourhood Derek and he live in. On his feet are this pair of bright red converse he found in the other half of the closet Derek and Stiles share in the room Stiles is staying in, and he loves them. The Stiles from before the accident has the same taste in clothes he does now; comfortable hipster, yet amazingly stylish. He thinks. It’s a pretty bias opinion, but come on, he’s allowed to be. Right?

As he walks, he gazes up at the large houses looming over him, some as silent as the night, some bustling with life as children run in the yards, and flash past the windows, one even has an enthusiastic singer singing along to yodel music, which – no, please don’t audition for X-Factor. Ever.

It’s amazing, looking at these houses, and knowing that he can reverse his steps and a few hundred meters in, he can open a door and call that place home. The one with the blue roof, by the way, not the one with the forever drawn curtains that make Stiles think they’re housing vampires or something, but supernatural things don’t exist. But if they were to, well. Stiles is very open minded right now, because he hasn’t got any set opinions about anything, which is nice, because he can make up his own mind on things, thanks. Like the taste of coffee. Ugh.

Stiles sighs out a breath and calmly, collectively, lowers himself to the ground, lying on his back so he can get an unobstructed view of the rolling clouds in the sky.

He lays like that, his arms splayed at his sides, his hand on the road side only just staying on the cement, and the other fiddling with the soft grass, for a good half hour before a car pulls up beside him, coming from the opposite way of Derek’s house.

The window is open, but Stiles can only see the roof of the car from this angle and wonders who felt they needed to pull up next to him. It’s a black car, expensive. Incredibly expensive, of that Stiles can tell.

“You alright there?” the car asks and Stiles laughs slightly.

“Yeah, I’m all good, just enjoying the. . .view,” Stiles replies breathlessly. “Lovely day today isn’t it?”

And then a head pops out of the window and gazes at him with a confused look, before her eyes bulge out of her head.

“Oh, my God!” she screeches. “Stiles Stilinski!”

Stiles stares blankly at her, “Uh, yeah I am, but people don’t usually pick that up so quickly.”

“I’m – Oh, my God!” she says again, clearly disbelieving, but Stiles doesn’t understand why. Is he a criminal or something? “Oh, my God!”

“You seem to be saying that a lot, miss,” Stiles helpfully points out. “And I don’t understand why.”

“You don’t – “ She laughs. “Of course you understand, you’re Stiles Stilinski. Well, I guess Stiles Stilinski-Hale how, hey?”

“Er. . .” Stiles looks around helplessly as she opens the door and steps out. She runs around the car and stops. She just stops and stares at his prone form on the ground.

“Why are you - ?” She stutters. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“Like what?” Stiles asks, gazing down at himself. At the bright red skinny jeans, the purple marvel shirt under his green plaid shirt and the bright red converse on his feet. His hair is longer than it was at the start because it had grown out a bit, because of the injury, and it was shorter in all the pictures in the house. He thinks this outfit is really nice if he does say so himself. Which he does. Often. Derek had just stared at him for a good ten seconds before closing his eyes and walking out the kitchen where Stiles was eating small round things in milk. Cheerios, Stiles recalls it saying on the box. It was a nice breakfast. “I think I look nice. What’s weird about it?”

“Well,” she says as if she doesn’t know how to begin.

“No go ahead, tell me what’s wrong with my outfit and I’ll go home and change it. Perhaps the colours are clashing too much, or this shirt doesn’t go with these pants. . .You tell me,” Stiles instructs her, because she looked like she needed it.

“Well, you don’t wear colours. . .” she tells Stiles slowly and Stiles just. . .

What?

“I don’t?” Stiles repeats, not quite believing. He loves colours, thank you very much. “What’s wrong with colours?”

“Well,” she’s saying well a lot. “You said colours are too bright for the real world. The real world is a dark, dark place where people can kill you at any second.”

Stiles is silent for a moment. “I said that?” he asks in a small voice.

“Yeah. . .” she hedges. “A couple of years ago in the interview where you said - ”

“Interview?” Stiles sits up. “What interview?”

“Stiles. . .” She says, “You are Stiles, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s not my real name. My real name is a monstrosity that is not to be repeated ever again,” Stiles looks at her sternly, daring her to try and guess.

“But you don’t act like the Stiles your fans know.”

Stiles shoot up from his sitting position, and he towers over her by about a head.

“Fans?” Stiles screeches. “I don’t have fans! I’ve been in the hospital for the last year, there’s no way I can have fans, because – “ Stiles pulls up and realises. She must be talking about the other Stiles. “You must be talking about the Stiles from before. Before the accident. I don’t remember anything from before.”

“Oh,” is all she says.

“Yeah,” Stiles replies, scratching the back of his neck. “What – how do you know me?”

“Well you act.”

“I do? What kind of acting?” Stiles asks, impressed with himself.

She pinches her nose and closes her eyes, “Oh, dear.”

)o()o(

Stiles walks home slowly, dragging his feet.

He can’t believe he’s an actor. A Hollywood actor. An actor that plays in movies. Well known movies.

Holy God.

Stiles chuckles to himself. Of course he’d be chucked into a job that is nowhere near normal, nor ideal for someone that has no idea about the first thing about acting. Why couldn’t he work in a fast food restaurant. Then at least Derek and Stiles would work in relatively similar work areas. Sort of.

He clenches his fists, remembering.

Derek had never told him what he had done for a living, never told him that he was famous and nearly everyone on the whole fucking planet knew his name. He’d avoided answering Stiles’ questions about what he did for a living.

Stiles doesn’t know why, but he’s angry at Derek.

Furious.

Stiles nearly rips the door off its hinges and storms into the house. The quiet, empty house and Stiles nearly roars in frustration. He needs to yell and scream and demand why Derek never told him. Why would Derek keep this from him? His blood is boiling in his veins.

The wooden floorboards under his feet nearly shake as Stiles storms up the stairs and into the study that Stiles had avoided because he didn’t want to intrude on something that wasn’t his business. He didn’t want to risk inviting himself into a life he didn’t deserve.

Stiles from before.

This was his office.

Now Stiles just twists the handle and walks right on in, to the sleek white lap top facing away from the door.

The screen is bright so Stiles turns on the lamp and unlocks the computer with the password he finds in the desk drawers. The desktop is a default picture and there’s a lot of icons. Stiles clicks on the internet on the taskbar and types his name into Google.

Billions of hits.

Stiles clicks on images.

And is bombarded with pictures of his face, his back, his hands, his smile. Pictures of him with other people, fighting other people, killing and murdering and saving and eating and praying and scowling and running. There are so many pictures of him that he nearly gags. He clicks the back button repeatedly, trying to get it to go faster.

He clicks on the first website and reads about his life from the biography on Wikipedia.

Stiles is not his name; he already knew that. He’s married to Derek Hale, the chef. He grew up in a small town called Beacon Hills. Both his parents are –

His parents are –

Stiles busts into tears.

)o()o(

Derek finds him three hours later, curled in on himself under the desk, weeping into his knees.

“Stiles?” Derek whispers and reaches a hand out, but Stiles recoils, flinching away from the person who kept so many secrets.

Away from the person that didn’t tell him so many things. The liar.

Betrayer.

Captor.

“Get away from me!” Stiles snarls, “You don’t get to console me! You lied!”

Derek backs away.

“You lied to me!” Stiles screams, “My parents are dead and you didn’t tell me! I had to find out about it by a girl I didn’t even know! I had to find out by the fucking internet, Derek! You lied about everything!”

Derek stares at him, devastated.

“I hoped you’d remember yo – “

“I can’t remember!” Stiles pushes at his body blocking the way out from under the desk. “I don’t remember so many things Derek! It’s been a whole year and the only things I’ve remembered have been tiny things about my friends or stupid ass songs that I don’t care about! I’m not him! I’m not the Stiles you married, okay! I don’t remember you!”

Stiles manages to shove Derek away enough to crawl out and stand over him, the light on the ceiling casting him in shadow.

“The only thing I know about you is that your name is Derek Hale, and you’re a chef,” Stiles tells him, quieter now. “I have no idea who you are. And you’ve lied to me.”

“I just thought it’d trigger your memo – “

“He’s not coming back!” Stiles snaps, his hands clenched at his sides, tears falling out the corners of his eyes and trailing down his cheeks, onto his shirt. “He’s not coming back because I’m here with my deformed brain that used to hold your Stiles, with my different personality, my different interests, my different opinions, my different view of the world and I’m sorry, Derek. I’m sorry I can’t be him, I’m sorry he’s not here anymore, and I’m sorry I’m here instead. But I can’t do anything about it because I can’t remember!”

“You’re still in there somewhere,” Derek pleads. “You just need to remember – “

“I’m the only one in here!” Stiles roars. His chest heaves as he stares down at Derek, tears rolling down his flushed cheeks. “I am not the same man, Derek. The man you loved is dead.”

Derek keens out a sob as Stiles storms out the room, slamming the door behind him.

)o()o(

He goes to his room and stays there.

)o()o(

Three days pass in a blur of tears and mourning for parents he never really knew, just snippets of information and memories that came and went at random intervals. Stiles only ever withdrew from his grief for brief periods to eat, drink and do his business and he ignored Derek whenever he saw him. Stiles didn’t care that the bags under Derek’s eyes were getting darker.

He didn’t want to look at the man that didn’t tell him his parents had died three days before his accident. It was the reason Stiles was out of the house anyway. He couldn’t handle being in the house so he needed to leave, but Derek had tried to stop him. They argued and Stiles left angry.

The furious, sad, grief stricken tears were what made him miss the corner and the car flew forwards to embrace the tree in a choke hold. It was a miracle he was even alive.

Either way, Stiles hid in his room and refused to leave until he’d sorted through everything in his head.

He was a world famous actor.

His parents were dead and he had to mourn them again.

Derek lied to him

Two people he had known, but doesn’t know now and will never know again, are dead.

Nobody told him.

)o()o(

Scott knocks on his door on the fourth day, hesitant and soft. He waits for Stiles to reply. Scott gives him the space to either let him in or ignore him and he will go away.

“I’m going to sit here for thirty minutes playing flappy bird, probably swear too much, and if, by the end, you have not let me in, I will leave and come back tomorrow at the same time and stay here for another half hour and I will continue this routine until you have forgiven me for obeying Derek’s wish to not tell you and let you remember on your own.”

Scott’s tone is patient and understanding and Stiles’ hands clench into fists under the pillow his head is resting on. It is unfair. Scott is unfair showing up here and being with him and staying until he, himself, decided Scott can be trusted again.

Stiles keeps his mouth shut and does not open it for thirty-one minutes.

Scott leaves after thirty.

)o()o(

He comes back the next day and Stiles ignores him.

)o()o(

Again, on the Tuesday, Scott sits outside his door, swearing at the game on his phone, occasionally playing something else and swearing just as much. Stiles does not let him in.

)o()o(

It’s the fourth day, and twelve minutes after Scott arrives that Stiles utters his name.

“Scott,” Stiles croaks, still lying on his side on the bed, his hands tucked under his pillow, legs curled up. The room is dark and the only source of light coming from under the door and the crack in the curtains.

Scott’s shadow flails for a few seconds before the door snicks open and Scott pauses as his eyes adjust to the light. Stiles can’t see his face and doesn’t want to.

“It hits me how different you are from the before Stiles. You even have a different sleeping position. Used to lie flat on your back, man. I’m liking this new one.”

Scott slips off his shoes and clambers forwards, crawling under the covers. He puts his back to Stiles and they lie in silence for hours.

)o()o(

“Why did you never tell me?” Stiles mutters after the silence and Scott’s quiet breathing begins to calm his anger down slightly. Only slightly.

Scott considers the question for a moment. “I don’t know.”

Stiles feels himself tense before Scott continues.

“At first it was because I didn’t want to tell you, didn’t want to see the look on your face when you realised the people you had been remembering were never going to come for you. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to hate me for telling you that the people you were learning about were already gone. I didn’t want you to have to mourn again, but I see now that it was a useless wish. It was better to tell you when you woke up, but I couldn’t do it, you were so confused, Stiles. It was as if I was going to tell a child that their parents were never coming back. I never wanted to be the person to tell a child that news. So I didn’t.”

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut.

“And then I started to like you, as I had the Stiles from before and that scared me. I don’t know if it was because I was afraid I was giving up on him, or if I thought I was replacing him, but then I realised the Stiles from before would have hit me when I thought that, but by that time you were happier, you understood the world more and I didn’t want to destroy that. Then Derek told me not to tell you and I didn’t understand why but I had come this far without telling you, so I decided to go with it. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Scott takes a deep breath, “But then Derek called me on Saturday night asking for me to come over and make you happy again because he would break down too if your pain kept clouding his own heart. He would never have lasted much longer with your grief pouring out through the tears falling from your eyes and he needed you to be happy again.”

)o()o(

Scott leaves at six o’clock to have dinner with Allison and Stiles is left in his room, the occasional sound of cars driving past and the headlights lighting up the room for a brief moment before the room is once again in complete darkness and silence. Stiles tries to sleep for a while, but forces himself to leave the bed and go downstairs where the sound of kitchen ware banging around in the kitchen draws him in.

He stands at the doorway to the kitchen, watching Derek as he’s beginning to make dinner.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me, Derek,” Stiles says, startling Derek and he almost drops the spoon he’s holding to stir whatever is in the pot.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your apologies,” Stiles snaps. “I want to know why you kept it from me!”

Derek swallow thickly and sets aside the cooking food, turning resolutely away from Stiles’ anger, not wanting to see the face Stiles’ anger. Derek can’t face that when he tries to explain.

“Stiles and I met in college, eight years ago last Monday,” Derek whispers just loud enough for Derek to hear. “And for the first couple of months, we hated each other. You were an annoying sophomore and I was a senior about to graduate, but then you started to. . .you didn’t leave me alone.”

Derek’s shoulder muscles ripple through the tight cotton shirt he’s wearing as he clutches onto the counter as if grounding his life so he doesn’t float away or sink through the floor.

“For six months, you were around constantly and no matter what I said, no matter how much I glared at you, swore at you, not matter how much I tried to push you away, you were always there – fucking – smiling – at me and I didn’t know what I had done to deserve it. After a while I started looking forwards to seeing you. I started searching for you in crowds. Hell, I even started missing you where you weren’t right next to me. But not once, not once, did you actually ask me out. You let me have the first move. It was like you knew exactly what I needed for me to start trusting you. You allowed me the chance to actually tell you to leave and you would, I knew that. The week before I was due to graduate, I looked at you and I realised. . .I realised that if I didn’t do it – if I didn’t ask you out – you would disappear like all the other goddamned chances I had been given to live a life I was happy with.”

Stiles listens to this with a keen ear, finally hearing about his relationship with Derek. This was another thing no body had been bothered to mention, but Stiles doesn’t care because he can see now that Derek’s heart has been shattered.

It has been cracked into the deepest recesses and stomped on by the gods and there is nothing Derek could do but let it happen because Stiles –

Stiles still hadn’t remembered him.

“And when I did, you smiled at me and I couldn’t stop staring. It was so bright and beautiful and I couldn’t help but be thankful for whatever I had done in a past life that meant I could have someone like you.”

There is a silence as Derek breathes shallowly, his breath hitching.

“Someone so. . .kind and forgiving and so fucking sure of himself. You were everything I needed, and I didn’t realise it until you walked out on me that night. And then you were gone.”

And Stiles just – Stiles doesn’t know what to think.

“You were gone and you didn’t remember me and I know you were trying to remember. You were trying so hard to remember anything at all and so bloody optimistic that my Stiles would come back. But you were a child again. You had to learn so many things again, but I was too busy grieving to realise that you were the same person. You are my Stiles.”

Stiles fights the urge to close his ears against the words that are causing and echo of agony to pierce Stiles’ own soul.

“So I tried to get you to remember by holding back information to see if you would remember it. If I didn’t tell you your mum and dad weren’t here, and if you remembered on your own, perhaps the grief wouldn’t come back as hard as it did before, when it made me want to stop you from saying goodbye to your parents in your own way. I didn’t understand that everyone has different ways of dealing with it. With the crushing pressure of losing someone you loved so much. And the consequences were damning.”

Derek spins around and Stiles has never seen so much pain and agony and horror and guilt and grief and sadness and self-loathing all on one face. Trails of salty tears flow from those beautiful eyes that Stiles has loved since the moment he woke up.

“You lost so much of us in the seconds of impact, so much of you, of the reflexes that should be automatic, that I thought you and the Stiles from before were two completely different people until – until I realised, not seven days ago that you aren’t. You are the same. You are Stiles and there will never be another one in all my lives because you are still kind. You are still caring. You are still so fucking sure of yourself and you fought back against me, knowing that I had done something wrong. You didn’t back down and I think that’s when I knew that even if you talk a bit more, even if you like pineapple of your pizza and even if you look at me a little differently, with a kind of mischief that comes with a lifetime of pranks, I still love you. I still love you, Stiles and I’m sorry it took me so long to realise that my feelings for you haven’t changed, but I know now. I know.”

Derek’s voice breaks on the words and Stiles doesn’t know what to do.

That anger, that fury is gone. He no longer wants to scream at Derek. He doesn’t want that anymore. Instead he wants to hold him and apologize and say that he loves Derek, too, but –

He can’t.

Because he doesn’t know Derek.

“I can’t say that I love you back,” Stiles dares utter into the silence and continues before Derek completely falls apart. “But I’m sure I can, one day. I just don’t know you right now. All I know about you is what my friends say but it’s not good enough for me. I need to hear it from your own mouth, not a secondary source. I know, if I begin to understand you more, what you like, what you don’t like, then I’m sure I’ll start to care about you. I’ll begin to understand your actions and understand the in-betweens of your lack of words because I’m pretty sure that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say in one sitting. It rivals my talking and I’m getting off topic.” Stiles takes a deep breath, “One day, I will look you in the eyes and tell you those three words, but I won’t do it until I’m sure because I still don’t understand the concept completely. I’m sure some internet searches will clear the air a bit more but they’re not always reliable so that’s not the best idea in the world but one day.”

And Derek nods. It’s better than he could ever hope for.

He smiles.

)o()o(

Epilogue

Stiles sits on the bench at Derek’s work, mindlessly chewing on a lush red apple, the juices squelching and escaping from the clutches on his mouth before his tongue sweeps it up and captures it once again before taking another bite.

“Squelching,” Stiles says, then giggles slightly at the word. “Squelch. Moist.”

Stiles snorts as he takes another bite and as Derek side eyes him, a bemused tilt to his lips. Stiles sticks out his tongue in a very mature manner at Derek and Derek makes a face in return, hiding it from the remaining staff.

The restaurant is closing, the last of the staff signing off and heading home, waving goodbye to their boss, smiles on their faces as they turn their backs on the diner as they slide in their cars and drive away. Derek tells each one of them to drive safely and makes sure they leave happy and alert before they exit the back door. It’s become almost mandatory for Derek.

Since the accident.

Stiles finds it both adorable and over-bearing, but lets Derek do his thing. If it somehow completely diminishes Derek’s underlying guilt from the accident, then Stiles won’t stop it. He’ll encourage it.

“Trinity, don’t forget to check your blind spot!” Stiles calls to the young woman with the brightly dyed hair. She just flicks him the finger, shutting the door resolutely and shutting them out in the process. Stiles cackles.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Derek grumbles. “I’m trying to prevent another disaster from happening.”

Stiles grins, “I know, honeymunchkin. But I’m your husband and I’m allowed to.”

Derek huffs out a breath as he finished cleaning the stove, washing his hands in the basin, then cleaning that too. Stiles finishes his apple and chucks it into the newly lined bin in the corner and cheers at the slam-dunk, before hopping down from the counter and following Derek out the door.

Stiles looks at the stars for a moment, before looking at Derek instead as Derek palms the keys and walks with an unhurried pace to the car.

Derek is so much more interesting than the unknowns of space.

“Hey Derek,” Stiles calls casually, but doesn’t wait for him to stop or slow down. He strolls right past him as he says it.

“I love you, too.”

And the happy tears in Derek’s eyes definitely make it worth the wait.

)o()o(

End

Finido

Fin

Done

Umm. . .

I don’t know anything else that might be used instead of finished.

Gracias?

Is that how you spell it?

Oh, well. . .

THANK YOU!