Authors note: Hi! Here's a new chapter.

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything, except my misstakes. :)

John Stilinski and his son had only fought once. It was a real fight, with screaming (mostly on his part), and it ended with a slamming door as he stormed out from the house leaving his 19 year old son alone as he drove off in his car.

It was the night Stiles told him he wanted to join the army.

John hadn't worried about his son following in his footsteps for a long time, not since what happened when he was away on his last deployment. When Stiles was younger, he had always said that he wanted to be like his dad. John was a superhero, in his young son's eyes, and he knew that Stiles still saw him as such, even though he was almost 20 years old. But those dreams and ambitions had faded the moment John was captured and declared missing in action, or that was at least what John had thought.

Both he and Stiles had been shaken by the incident, and the year following Stiles spent every waking hour, outside of school, tailing after his father. He went with him to his physical therapy and doctors' appointments. When John got well enough he went with him to work, sitting at his desk at the sheriff's station, studying. John hadn't been cleared for field work, something that both he and Stiles felt was good. Instead John spent his first months back working as a deputy doing paperwork and answering calls.

It was now almost a year since Stiles graduated High School, and the boy had yet to choose a collage to study at. John had been understanding when Stiles said that he wanted to take year off from school. Stiles hadn't said it out loud, but John knew that he still had nightmares, and that he didn't want to leave his father just yet.

Some nights, when the nightmares were particularly bad, Stiles would come into his room after waking up. John who would have woken up from the noise, would pretend to still be asleep, even as Stiles lifted the covers and crawled into the bed beside him. They would never talk about it in the morning, just as they never talked about John's nightmares. In his dreams he would sometimes come too late, when he kicked the door to the bathroom down, his son would already have died. When that happened John would come into Stiles' bedroom, and sit down in the armchair beside the bed, just to sit there and watch over his son as he slept.

John knew the terror of war and being in a warzone, and he never wanted for Stiles to experience it as well. Maybe that was the reason for his poor reaction to his son's words. He hadn't even let Stiles speak. He had screamed and raved, all while Stiles just sat there in silence. It ended as quickly as it started, the door slamming shut behind him as he stormed out to his car.

It was almost an hour later when he finally stopped driving. At first he didn't recognise where he was, the road was surrounded by woods and there were no buildings or houses anywhere. It was just then that John's rage faded away, and he gave into the fear underlying it. He hated the feeling, the dread of not knowing what to expect. He feared that if he let his son, his baby boy, leave, he wouldn't come back. Not alive.

It was an hour and a half later when John pulled into the driveway again. Stiles was sitting on the porch, mobile phone clutched in his hand and tears in his eyes. As soon as John stepped out of the car Stiles ran up to him and pulled him into a fierce hug.

"What the hell were you thinking, dad?" he whispered as he hugged the man impossibly closer. "You can't just leave like that…"

"I'm sorry, Stiles…" John said, pulling away to look into Stiles' eyes. "I didn't… I can't lose you. Not you too"

"You are not going to lose me, dad." Stiles says as they sit down on the porch next to each other. "I won't go, okay? Not of you don't want me to."

John was tempted to say no, to forbid Stiles from going. He wanted nothing more than to shout: "No, stay here! Don't leave". But he felt that it would be selfish. He couldn't forbid Stiles from going. Not if Stiles really wanted to go. His son had always been impulsive, something he had his ADHD to thank for. But never about important things like this. If Stiles came to him with an idea like this, then it meant that he was really considering it.

And who was John to stop him then?

It was a little more than a year later when Stiles got his first deployment. He was supposed to be away for six months, coming home in time for Thanksgiving. He had already said goodbye to Scott and Mellissa earlier in the morning, and his father had driven him to the airport.

The time passed far too fast, and soon it was time to say goodbye. John turned towards his son, and for a moment he couldn't be prouder of him. As he looked at Stiles he couldn't help but be reminded of himself when he was young. He had been Stiles' age himself when he first got deployed.

He didn't even realise he was starting to tear up until Stiles pulled him into a hug.

"Hey, no tears… Right?" Stiles said with a voice thick with emotion. "I'll be back before you know it."

"I'm really proud of you. You have to remember that." John said, not wanting to think about the words his son had said, them being the same words he used to say to Stiles before going aboard.

"I know, dad. I'll be back soon… I love you…"

Six months later Stiles came back, just like he promised, and he stayed home for a month before going overseas again.

A year later, two months into Stiles' third tour, John got a phone call in the middle of the night.

At first, John thought that it was from the station, over the last two week they had had a string of late night burglaries and they had yet to find a suspect.

But he soon realised that it wasn't, he didn't recognise the number, and the station almost always used the land line.

"This is John Stilinski"

"Captain Stilinski," as soon as John heard his former title he knew that something was wrong. "This is General Newton speaking, your son Sergeant Stilinski has been wounded in action. He is being flown over to Fort Irwin military hospital as we speak, and he should be there within the next couple of hours"

John had never driven so fast in his entire life.

When he arrived at the hospital, some two hours earlier, he learned that his son had yet to arrive. While he waited he got to talk to Stiles' doctor, as well as General Newton, who told him what had happened.

General Newton told him that Stiles had been caught in a bomb blast, which injured him gravely, as well as killing two other soldiers in his crew. Stiles had been lucky they said. He could just as easily have died from the blast.

Hours later John sat in an uncomfortable chair beside his sleeping son, watching him sleep. He looked peaceful, no dreams disturbing his slumber.

John held Stiles' hand between his own, as tears rolled down his cheeks.

"You did come home to me, buddy…" he said, almost choking on the tears "but not all of you…"

He moved his eyes away from Stiles' face, towards his left side. And there on the bedlinens lay the stump, where Stiles' left forearm used to be.

The first months were hard, on both of them. Stiles' night were filled with bad dreams, causing him to wake up screaming, the night terrors worse than they had been ever before. Stiles was angry, at himself, mostly. He felt that he had failed the soldiers in his crew that died. Once he even said that he wished that he had died with them, but when he saw the look on John's face at his words he regretted them.

Stiles struggled to find a meaning in his life, he felt broken, without purpose. But then he figured that maybe he could live for others, for his father and for Scott and Mellissa, until he felt the strength to live for himself.

A year later John had just gotten home from the grocery store and were carrying in the bags from the car. Stiles was upstairs, doing whatever it was he did on his spare time nowadays, but John hoped that he was applying for collage, as he had promised he would do.

"Hey, Stiles!" he shouted up the stairs, as he walked into the kitchen, "Can you give me a hand with these?"

Stiles didn't answer, and in the silence that followed John started to regret his poor choice of wording. Sure this last months had been better, good even, but Stiles was still hesitant to show his injuries, and John knew that he still felt ashamed sometimes. He was just about to say something, beg for forgiveness, anything, when he heard a thump at the bottom of the stairs.

There, at the bottom of the stairs, lay Stiles' prosthetic arm, seemingly thrown from the top of the stairs.

"Well… you got what you asked for didn't you, dad?" Stiles said, walking down the stairs with a grin on his face. "Do you have any idea how long I have wanted to do that? I've waited for the opportunity for months!"

John smiled as happy tears sprung up in his eyes. Maybe Stiles was doing better than he thought?

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