Blah blah blah sorry I haven't updated in forever blah blah blah.

Every one of you who read/reviewed/favorited is amazing! Thank you thank you thank you for your support!

Chapter 6: Jet Fuel

Scott wasn't sure where to begin.

Stiles was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to give an explanation for whatever weird thing was going on this time. Scott started to explain about three different times before stopping, deciding to take a different approach.

"Say I had amnesia and forgot the last two years. What happened?" he asked. Stiles narrowed his eyes.

"Are you high or something?" he asked. "Cause I'm the only one allowed to break into Derek's stash, okay, one of us has to be moral around here."

"What?" Scott asked, genuinely confused. He shook his head, clearing it of the new batch of questions that had cropped up. "Nevermind, we'll come back to that. Spark Notes from the last two years, please?"

"Well, there was that time that you and I got bitten by a rabid Peter Hale, who died and came back to life and also was later found to be the root cause of a dead pool where hunters were offered a lot of money to kill us...uh, Jackson turned into a lizard man and then hopped the pond for some reason I can't remember...there was a brief stint in Mexico...listen, I don't think there's a good way to summarize everything. Scott, what the hell is going on?" Stiles rambled for a few minutes before giving up. "And who the hell was that girl in there?"

"That's Natalia." he said. Stiles gave him a look, waiting for more.

"And Natalia is…" he led on. Scott took a deep breath.

"Natalia is a sorceress who helped me time travel." he said quickly, as if they were just ripping off a bandaid. He made a mental note that maybe he didn't have to tell Stiles everything in the future.

"You're shitting me." Stiles said after a moment. "Why in the hell were you time traveling? And why didn't you take me with you?"

"It's a long story." Scott said, already exhausted with the situation. For the upteenth time, he regretted his initial decision to try and change the past. Stiles opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Grace coming out of the house, dragging Natalia by the hand.

"Be right back we'll meet you at the party!" she said, waving at the boys without looking at them.

"Whoa whoa whoa, in what vehicle?" Stiles said, momentarily forgetting his discussion with Scott.

"Yours of course! See you later!" she said, opening Nat's door for her before scurrying around to the other side of the Jeep. Nat waved at him, giving him a nervous smile.

"Um, where are they going?" Scott asked, turning and moving towards the Jeep. Grace didn't give him any time, though, pulling away from the curb. Stiles let out a frustrated sigh.

"Probably back to the house. I imagine it has something to do with outfits or make up or something. Which brings me back to that girl and why you've been time traveling?"

Scott was once again saved by an interruption. This time, his mom came out of the front door, holding a wrapped gift. "You two are still here? I thought you'd go with Grace. You better get going, you know how Lydia gets when you're late."

"Where are we going?" Scott asked, becoming more confused as the time went on. His attention was being pulled in too many directions - he was worried about Nat, but didn't want to give Stiles any more suspicions. Stiles rolled his eyes.

"Did you seriously forget Lydia's birthday party? Okay seriously, where did you get whatever you're on cause it's apparently super powerful-" he said.

"No, no, I just got confused on my days." Scott said, shaking his head. He awkwardly took the present from his mother, as well as the car keys she produced.

"Grace let me know the whole plan before she left. She was very insulted that Natalia didn't have a closet the size of a small bedroom and wanted to run her by the house to get changed." Melissa explained. Scott tried to not freak out; if his mother trusted whoever this girl was, then maybe he could too. Obviously things in this time were much different than they were previously; he had been able to fix a little bit of something, at least. He decided to give them twenty minutes before hunting them down.

The boys climbed into his mom's car. Scott inwardly hoped Lydia lived in the same place, as he didn't know what explanation he could come up with for driving to the wrong house.

"So, I hate to be a pest, but I really think we should get back to this time travel thing." Stiles said as Scott pulled out of the driveway.

"You love being a pest." Scott said.

"Scottie." he said shortly. Scott sighed.

"Long story short, things weren't great, and I was trying to fix them." he said, making his way to Lydia's house.

"That's literally the worst explanation I've ever heard." Stiles said. "I'm detail oriented, Scott. I need more than that."

"'Detail oriented'? That's what you're calling it these days?" Scott said lowly.

"Stop trying to change the subject." Stiles retorted.

"Who's Grace?" Scott asked instead.

"Seriously? Okay, pull over, cause if you're fucked up enough to not remember my sister-"

"Sister?!" Scott exclaimed. He knew that altering the timeline would change things, but it seemed he had landed himself in a completely different dimension. He slammed on the breaks, causing Stiles to yell out a few choice words as the car skidded to a stop. Luckily they were on a quiet neighborhood road, with no one ahead or behind them. He kept his mind enough to put the car in park before battling to get his seatbelt off. His chest felt tight, and he nearly ripped the thing apart trying to get it off of him. His heart was racing, his hands shaking as he pushed the door of the car open, stumbling out onto the pavement.

"Scott, what the fuck is going on?" Stiles said, scrambling out of the car. But Scott couldn't answer. How could he have messed up this much? All he'd wanted to do was fix his life, and now he had completely butchered his world into a chopped mess that he couldn't even recognize. Things were bad before, but all of this felt wrong.

Headlights glared at him from down the road, but he could barely register them. Stiles was saying something, but he couldn't hear him over the sound of his blood rushing through his ears. He was pulling at his shirt - trying to get him to move maybe? - but he was paralyzed, his muscles tight with the panic shooting through them. The headlights stopped, blinding his sensitive eyes, but he couldn't make himself look away. Shadows passed around the lights, but they were nothing to Scott. Nothing was tangible. Nothing was real.

A moment later - or was it hours? He wasn't sure - he could hear his name being called. It was distant and garbled, as if it were under water. But he could hear it nonetheless. A pair of hands tenderly laid against his cheeks, blue eyes appearing in front of him.

"Scott, what's wrong?" Nat asked, her face colored with concern. Her face was a little different; Grace had apparently managed to get some makeup on the girl during their trip. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the glittering purple of her magic tracing the veins underneath her skin; he wondered if she could take away emotion like he could with pain. He felt his heartbeat slow, his breathing evening out.

"He had a panic attack." Stiles said. Nat was startled, as if she'd forgotten he was there. She took a step back from Scott, giving Grace room to step in.

"Are you okay?" she asked, taking his hand. At her touch, Scott felt like his head cleaved open with an axe. Images flashed across his brain - him and Grace and Stiles, sitting in the Jeep. Him and Grace and Stiles, hanging out at the Stilinski house. Him and Grace and Stiles, dealing with the effects of the first full moon. He realized that they were memories - memories that the Scott in this timeline must have been making this whole time. The memories played, one after the other, like a clip montague on fast forward. When they finally stopped, he was laying on the street, the pavement warm under his back. Three concerned faces stared at him, the street lamps giving them all halos.

"What the fuck was that?" Stiles asked. Scott inched his way to a sitting position, then climbed back on his feet.

"Hell if I know." he said. He felt exhausted; all his energy was sapped between the time travelling, the panic attack, and the appearance of whatever memories he apparently needed to fill the gaps. He looked at Grace again, and for some reason felt sadness towards her. He couldn't make sense of it, and figured it had to do with the nature of her relationship with Other Scott. Everyone looked afraid to get too close to him, which made him feel awkward and uncomfortable. "Let's just go."

"To the hospital? Yes, I agree." Stiles said, gesturing towards the Jeep. Scott shook his head.

"Whatever it is, it's passed now. I'm okay." he said. Nobody moved. "Seriously, Lydia's gonna kill us. I'll just make sure to drink plenty of water when we get there."

"You're not blaming this on dehydration." Stiles said.

"I said let's go." Scott said shortly. He was tired. So completely tired. He pried open the door to his mom's car, hearing Nat's footsteps as she trotted along to the other side. Stiles made a comment behind him about driving under the influence, but he ignored him. Grace looked like she wanted to get in the car too, but instead turned and went to the passenger side of the Jeep. Scott closed the car door behind him, the silence in the car feeling like it was smothering him.

"Are you okay?" Nat asked after a moment.

"I don't know." he said truthfully. "Is that normal?"

She nodded. "The magic tries to fill in the gaps for you, but since it's different than it was before...it can only do so much."

"Why didn't it do it last time?" he asked.

"Probably because you were dead in that timeline. There was no consciousness to try and connect to you." she said with a shrug. He let out a long breath.

"Alright, well, I guess we have a birthday party to get to." he said. Nat didn't respond, not knowing what she could say to make him feel better.

"You celebrate the day you were born?" she asked, changing the subject.

"What? Yes?" he said, confused and surprised. "You don't?"

"I don't even know what day it was." she said with a shrug. She seemed unbothered by the fact, though for some reason it saddened Scott. "Is this the one with the trees and the lights?"

"Uh, no. That's Christmas." he said. Her eyes lit up.

"So this is the one with the cake and the candles?" she asked eagerly.

"Yea. Wait, how do you know about it if you don't celebrate it?" he asked.

"Well, I could always see the celebrations going on. I just never really knew what they were for." she said. Once again, she didn't sound worried about it. And once again, Scott found himself feeling oddly sad for her. He and his mom never had much, but Christmases and birthdays were always special.

"When do you think your birthday is?" he asked. He immediately regretted asking it out loud; it would not make her feel better to remind her that she didn't know when her birthday is.

"I don't know." she said with a shrug.

"Well, when do you want it to be?" he asked instead. Scott was nothing but a problem solver. Nat sat in silence for a moment, thinking. He wondered what was going on in her head; based on what he could tell, she probably didn't use the normal calendar. Phases of the moon and alignment of the stars seemed more her style.

"What's the one with the sparkles?" she asked.

"Sparkles...in the sky?" Scott countered. She shook her head.

"The girls wear sparkles. And everyone kisses at midnight." she said. Scott grinned.

"New Year's." he said. Her brows furrowed.

"But it doesn't always follow the cycle of the lunar new year." she said.

"No it, uh, follows the regular calendar." he replied, unsure of how else to explain it.

"Oh, the twelve month one." she said.

"Yea." Scott said, not knowing what else to say. Nat was constantly surprising him by both how little and how much she knew about the world. She sat back against the seat with a self satisfied smile.

"I like that one the best. I'll take that one." she said. "How long until my birthday?"

"Ah, it kind of just passed." Scott said with a grimace. "It's March now. Your birthday is January 1st."

She let out a sigh. "Ten months? That'll take forever."

"Don't worry, it'll be here before you know it." he said. By now, they had pulled up in front of Lydia's house, and his werewolf senses made it obvious that the party was in full swing. He pushed the door of the car open and climbed out, remembering last moment to grab the gift for Lydia from the back seat. Nat followed uncertainly behind him, not sure what to expect of the evening.

To be fair, this was not like any birthday party that Scott had been to before. As soon as they opened the door, the stench of people and alcohol and something illegal hit him. Nat scrunched her nose as well, telling him that the smells weren't just due to his werewolf senses. Scott idly wondered if Lydia had decided to make the theme for this party "1940s opium den". The lights were low, the music loud, and a lot of people around were definitely under the influence. Since most of them seemed to also be werewolves, Scott wasn't exactly sure what they were under the influence of - he had learned the hard way that alcohol and weed didn't exactly do it for them anymore.

Scott recognized a couple of the people he'd met after his first round trip of time travel, but some of them were missing. He didn't know if they just hadn't arrived, but he didn't particularly care to find out. There were a good number of people there that he didn't recognize, which made him nervous. Next to him, Nat slipped her hand around his elbow, keeping close to him. This whole situation felt weird and wrong, and it seemed like he wasn't the only person who thought so.

"Finally!" Lydia said, appearing in front of him. She practically jumped on him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. Scott reacted quickly, pulling away from Nat and putting his arms around her. Based on the weird smells coming from her, she may not stick the landing if he didn't support her.

"Uh, hey Lydia." he said uncertainly. She didn't hear the quiver in his voice in her current state. She finally let go, and Scott had to steady her as her feet hit the floor. "This is for you." he said awkwardly, holding the gift out in front of him.

"Aw, what a sweetheart." she said. She took the parcel from him, pulling the tissue from the bag in quick snaps. Scott honestly had no idea what was in the bag, and hoped it was something satisfactory. She reached in, dropping the bag as she held on to whatever was inside.

"Oh my god! You found it!" she said, gazing in reverence at the very old book in her hands. There was a weird symbol on the front, and writing in a language Scott didn't recognize. There was a vague memory in his internal library of searching for this - apparently it was a bestiary. The language on the front was Hindi. She laid a sloppy kiss on his cheek, then flitted toward the stairs. She mentioned something about taking it to her room for safekeeping, and Scott didn't question her.

The living room was even more of a mess than the entrance. There were people everywhere. Some were lying on the floor, pointing out imaginary patterns on the ceiling. Some were lying on each other, oblivious to those around them. Everywhere there were bodies of people - talking, laughing, dancing, fighting - an absolute bedlam of a birthday party. Scott looked over to the bar to see Stiles and Grace had snuck in behind them. Stiles was knocking back a shot of some weird blue liquid, whereas Grace was pouring her own shot from a flask that had apparently been in her purse. He watched as they each took two more - Grace from the flask, and Stiles from an odd, dark bottle that didn't have a label. It made him nervous.

"'Ey, Scottie boy." Stiles said, bringing a small glass over to him. "Your turn."

"Uh, no thanks." Scott said. At the look on Stiles' face, he quickly added, "I'll get one in a little bit. Gotta make sure Nat is okay first." He didn't feel her hand on his arm anymore, and turned to look for her.

"She's fine." Stiles said, drawing out his words. He pulled Scott towards the door to the pool area. Whatever he drank, it was hitting him fast. And it didn't help that he added the fourth shot that had supposedly been for Scott.

"Stiles, what are you drinking?" he asked slowly, completely stopping.

"What, this?" he answered, gesturing to the empty shot glass. "I know it's not your favorite, but hey, when it's your birthday then you can request that weird stuff-"

"What? Stiles, how are you drunk right now? What is that stuff?" Scott interrupted.

"Uh, I'm drunk cause it's fun, and this stuff happens to be my favorite." Stiles said, not hearing the tone of Scott's voice.

"It's dangerous." Scott said. All he could think of was the night of the bonfire, one of many nights they almost died.

"Yea it is. That's kind of the point." Stiles said with a humorless laugh. "But we're all gonna die one day, so might as well make the best of it."

"What?" Scott said, honestly shocked at the answer. The way Stiles worded the answer, it sounded like there was a joke that Scott was missing. Stiles checked his watch.

"Forty-seven days, bro." Stiles said. His tone suggested a joke, but his eyes betrayed the seriousness of the matter. Whatever he was talking about, he wasn't kidding.

"Forty-seven...Stiles, what's happening in forty-seven days?" Scott asked, starting to freak out. Stiles paused for a moment, and Scott could practically see the wheels turning as his drunken mind attempted to formulate a response.

"Ask me in the morning, okay?" he said lowly. He cleared his throat loudly, switching back to the jovial mood he had before. "But tonight, we party! Gracie!"

"Huh?" Grace called back from across the room from where she was lounging on a couch, talking to a blonde that Scott vaguely recognized from the Second Time.

"Another!" he said, wandering back to the bar. Grace echoed his proclamation, pulling out her flask again. Scott noticed, too soon, that Nat was also by the bar. And stuck between a devious looking Erica and Isaac. Scott watched in horror as Erica took a clear glass of the blue stuff, putting it at Nat's lips and helping her tip it back. He strided across the room, ignoring all the people around him.

"Nat, are you okay?" he asked, gently pulling her by the hand. Erica stepped forward, draping her arm around Nat's shoulders.

"She's having a great time, don't worry about it." she said. Nat looked confused, and Scott had the feeling she was seeing the world a little differently than usual. Whatever this stuff was, it was strong, and worked very fast.

"Natalia, how many did they give you?" he asked carefully. She looked at her hands, a look of intense concentration on her face.

"Nothing she can't handle." Isaac said smoothly, just as Nat held up four fingers.

"Four?!" Scott nearly yelled. He heard laughing from behind him. He turned to see Grace, who was looking past him at Nat.

"Someone had too much." she said in a sing-song voice. Scott snapped back to Nat, who indeed looked like she was regretting every shot she took.

"Let's go outside." he said, grabbing her hand a little firmer this time and pulling her away. Erica's laugh followed them as he pushed their way across the room and out the back door, the light of the pool making Nat look even more sickly. Her hand held a supernatural warmth to it, so Scott took them past the pool and into the woods behind Lydia's house. Nat collapsed against a tree once they were out of sight of the house, holding on to it for dear life as she leaned over and vomited. Scott could see every vein under her skin glowing purple as her body reacted to whatever was in the drink. He held her hair, rubbing her back in soothing circles. The heat radiating off of her had passed from uncanny to worrisome. She mumbled something to him, but he couldn't understand her. He moved his ear closer to her face and asked her to repeat.

"You need to move!" she said forcefully. Scott hesitated, and the extra second he took before moving away cost him.

Her magic started ebbing away from her skin, the dust particles in the air around her erupting into flames. Scott suddenly realized what was happening, and attempted to move away from her. Before he could make it a safe distance, her magic exploded in a swirling purple sphere around her. He felt the searing pain as the flesh along his chest and arm burned, most of his face spared by throwing his hand in front of it. Nat was screaming, as if the magic was burning her from the inside out. He didn't know how long she screamed, but he knew that it was much longer than he thought she could.

Finally, she ran out of air. The sphere around her dropped, leaving the trees and grass around them smoking in the after effects of the heat. Nat fell to her knees, supporting herself with her hands on the charred ground as she vomited once again. Scott tried to climb to his feet, but found that the front of his leg was burned as well. He crawled over to her, managing to get an arm around her before she collapsed. She shook as she laid against his chest; she was crying.

"Shh, it's okay." he said softly, tenderly rubbing her back. Each movement sent lightning bolts of pain through his arm and chest, but he fought to ignore it. They would heal - he could already feel his eyes glowing as his powers kicked in. Once her sobs reduced to sniffles, Nat pushed herself to a seated position, staring at him with wide eyes. Her tears made her cheeks shimmer in the moonlight.

"I'm-I'm sorry." she stammered. Her words were slurred, leading Scott to believe that she was still drunk. Her jaw dropped as she saw his wounds - to be fair, they were much more extensive than Scott originally anticipated. Her hand flew to her mouth in shock, and for a split second Scott was afraid she was going to vomit again.

"It's okay." he said quickly, his hand going to her cheek. Her skin was cool, just like the first time she had attempted time travel. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." she said.

"There's no way you could have known the drink would have affected you like that." he said. He held his arm up, pointing to the new pink flesh forming at the edges. "See? It's already starting to heal. Everything's okay."

She shook her head again. "I'm sorry about everything. I'm sorry that I messed everything up. I wanted so badly to help and I just…" she hesitated. The alcohol was slowing her thoughts. "I'm sorry I couldn't be better."

Scott looked at the defeated expression on her face and felt his heart break a little. She was no longer sobbing, but tears still flowed readily from her eyes. She couldn't stand to look at him, and was instead looking at her hands as if they had betrayed her. She looked very young in that moment, reminding him that they were all too young to be dealing with the messy hand that life had dealt them.

"You're the best, okay?" he said, tilting her chin up with his hand. Their faces were very close, and the thought of kissing her quickly flitted across his mind, but it didn't stick. "You are smart, and talented, and very, very strong. Do not doubt yourself, okay?"

She looked at him very intently then. The kissing thought made a reappearance, and Scott wondered what she was thinking. He couldn't read her expression, and her eyes had the semi-unfocused look of someone under the influence. After what seemed like a long time, Nat gave him a shy half-smile. Her tears had finally stopped.

"You're a great alpha, you know that?" she said. Whatever he had been expecting, that wasn't really it.

"It never hurts to be reminded." he said with a shrug. He held out his non-burned hand. "Come on, let's get you back home."

"What about your friends?" she asked as they stood up and started walking back to the house. Scott shook his head.

"They'll be fine without us." he said. He suddenly remembered Stiles' cryptic "forty-seven days" comment, but resigned to worry about it in the morning. "Besides, they don't feel like my friends. Not really."

"Even with the extra memories?" she asked.

"Those don't even feel like me." he responded. He was quiet then, trying with every fiber of his being to not let the anxiety overwhelm him again. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other, and keeping his grasp around Nat's waist as she stumbled over the uneven ground. The silence in the car was welcome, allowing his heart to slow to a regular pace as they drove back to the McCall house. Scott had no idea what time it was, and tried to be quiet as they walked in the front door.

"You're home early." Melissa said, nearly scaring Scott and Nat half to death. Luckily, Scott's wounds had healed by now. However, she spotted Nat in her current state. "Ah, and now I see why."

"Do you think you could help her clean up? She...this isn't her fault." Scott implored. He hoped Melissa would understand, and not be mad about him bringing home a drunk version of the girl she had met just a couple hours before.

Melissa got it. "Yes, absolutely. Come here, honey. Let's get you in the shower and then in some sweatpants." She wrapped her arm around Nat, helping her slowly walk back to her room. Scott let out a sigh of relief; that would be one less thing he had to worry about tonight. He went upstairs to his own room, stripping down and getting in the shower himself. He wanted to wash away every remnant of this night.

Some time after he had showered and gotten dressed, his mom appeared in his doorway. She knocked softly on the open door, getting his attention.

"Seems like you guys had an eventful evening." Melissa said softly, coming to sit next to Scott on the bed. He let out a humorless laugh.

"You could say that." he replied. "Some kids at the party...she didn't know what she was drinking. She didn't know what it could do to her."

"That's what I gathered." she said. She put her arm around Scott, kissing the side of his head. He gave her a confused look. "She said that you took care of her. That she didn't know what she would do without you."

Scott blushed. He didn't think about Nat drunkenly rambling to his mom. "Is she okay?" he asked instead. Melissa nodded.

"She's in the downstairs room, fast asleep. I made sure she had a lot of water before she went to bed." she said.

"Thank you, Mom." Scott said.

"Anytime, hon." she replied. She gave him another kiss on the head, then stood up to leave. "I would like a little more explanation in the morning, though. Of whatever is going on here." she said, gesturing to his body - particularly the newly healed side.

"You got it." Scott said. "Goodnight, Mom."

"Goodnight, sweetheart." she replied, turning and walking away.

Scott laid down, the soft sheets feeling cool and nice against the newly healed skin of his chest and arm. He knew his mom would notice, and he was grateful that she hadn't mentioned it earlier. He stubbornly pushed all his worries to the back of his mind, focusing on his breathing and trying to go to sleep.

Tomorrow would bring its own challenges.

Did you cry? I cried.

Again, thank you so much to everyone for your continued support! I am determined to finished this story. It may take me a decade, but it will happen.

Thank you to JanuaryLily, thechosenpen, Shadow-wolf78, allybz, and notcarlsjr for your reviews! You are all beautiful wonderful people and I don't know what I would do without you.

If you have a second, please leave a review and let me know what you thought!

-XM