Lydia was laughing when it happened. Laughing at the spastic manner in which Stiles was trying to explain why exactly this wasn't funny. They were going through an intersection and Stiles turned to give her a look and then he was just surrounded by light, a fucking halo for the one guy Lydia had always wondered if he was slightly too good to be true. Because Stiles was just that fucking beautiful of a human being. Taking care of her and the rest of pack and putting up with Derek-Fucking-Hale's emotional constipation to be just human. So when the truck's lights had surrounded him she'd thought for a moment, oh, now it makes sense, he was an angel all along.

And then the truck slammed into them, into Stiles' precious jeep, into Stiles. Her laughter has been horribly choked off, replaced with screams of terror and absolute-fucking-horror. Because she's a werewolf and somehow she can process the fact that a semi-truck has plowed into them and they're actually rolling over and crashing into the cars that hadn't fucking ran the red light. Then everything goes still and she groans, because hey, she might be a werewolf, but that doesn't mean that car wrecks don't hurt.

But she's healing, because, hey, she is a werewolf, but Stiles isn't. The jeep had come to a rest upright, thank god, but the entire driver's side is smashed up, completely wrecked. And Lydia knows that if she wasn't a werewolf then she'd probably be unconscious right about now. But she is, so she's much more concerned with the fact that Stiles has his eyes closed and there's so much blood.

Oh God, so much fucking blood. And Stiles is pale, paler than she's ever seen him, for all his jokes about being a fragile, pale human and it's scaring her. Because she can barely hear his heart and his breathing is practically nonexistent and he cannot die on her.

Because she might be able to function if he died, and it would be functioning because somehow life would always be a little hollow with Stiles there to fill in the silence, but the Pack would go to pieces. So Stiles had to be alive, he had to survive this. For all of them.

X

Contrary to popular belief, Jackson was not an idiot. Sure, he wasn't some kind of genius like Lydia, but he wasn't stupid. Not by a long shot. Especially when it came to understanding people. Especially people close to him. And somehow, on the list of people who Jackson really cared about, Stiles' name was near the top. Jackson's not really sure how it ended up there, but he knows that it's there to stay, because he'd long ago come to terms with just how important Stiles was to just about anyone who was forced to take the time to get to know him.

Jackson's the first to get to the hospital after the accident, but only because he'd already been there, having just finished his shift. He'd been heading out when the ambulance had come in and he'd smelled it. Stiles had always stood out for everyone in the pack, no one was really sure why, nor did they really care, because it was useful. So Jackson had been able to smell Stiles even through the chemically clean scent that always made him sneeze and the other nurses make fun of him. He'd smelled him, and Lydia to a certain extent, before he'd seen them.

He took off running as soon as he smelled them though, because he could smell theblood, and he knew that the pack almost never came to the hospital, unless they came to see him. And since he'd technically gotten off an hour ago they couldn't be coming to see him. So he ran.

And what he found made him wish that he could rewind time, because he honestly couldn't process what was happening. Lydia was crying, holding herself in a way that made it seem as if she didn't she'd fly to pieces. And Stiles was just lying there, as doctors worked over him, shouting terms that maybe Jackson could have understood if it hadn't felt like his entire world had come to a halt.

Because it was Stiles, hyperactive, never-gonna-be-quiet-can't-stay-still-to-save-his-life Stiles and he wasn't moving. He wasn't talking. He was just lying there, looking too pale and the harsh lights of the ER were just highlighting everything that was wrong with this situation. And Jackson's entire world has narrowed to that bed and that boy, because he isn't quite sure how to function in a world that doesn't have Stiles there to help him, to watch over him, to just fucking talk to him about anything and everything until Jackson is ready to punch him to get him to shut up.

He's not sure how long he was standing there but he doesn't come out of his own little world until Derek's voice yelling out for Stiles drags him out of it. Reminding him that his world does not consist of only him and Stiles and that the Pack needs him, because the Pack needs everyone in order to keep themselves sane until Stiles wakes up. Because Stiles has to wake up.

X

Isaac's one of the last to arrive, because he'd been all the way across town at work and his boss could be an asshole sometimes. Okay, more than just sometimes. But that didn't matter right now, nor did the fact that he'd probably lost his job by walking out in order to get to the hospital. What mattered was that by the time he did get there, everyone was huddled together in the waiting room because Stiles has already been in surgery for the past half hour.

Jackson is brooding by himself in the corner like always and Scott and Allison are wrapped around each other and he's pretty sure that Scott's crying. Which, hey, is so not okay. Because tears and Scott mix about as well as the thought that the tears are for Stiles and that's just wrong. Boyd's holding up the wall, but Isaac's not sure how that's different from normal because Boyd's always holding up one wall or another but this time it seems more like the wall's holding up Boyd. Erica's pacing, so full of energy that it's almost like she's trying to make up for Stiles not being there.

And Derek, Derek's holding Lydia as if she might fall apart at any moment, and Isaac thinks it's more because Derek might fall apart if he's not given something to hold onto, but either way he looks up when Isaac runs in, and can't quite manage to hide the utter fear in his eyes. And that's when Isaac really starts to get scared. Because if Derek, the Alpha who can handle anything, can't handle this then how is Isaac supposed to?

But he doesn't break down, because he's a little scared that that might cause Derek to fall apart too and that's the last thing he wants. But he does want to be near Derek, because Derek's the only one who can come close to offering the same amount of safety and calm that Stiles normally provides, even if Isaac can tell that Derek's more than a little broken and not at all calm.

He'll take what he can get, because he needs it. And for some reason, he's pretty sure that Derek needs it too. The comfort of pack. Because this, this right now. Is actually happening. And he feels like he might have a panic attack, because he hasn't felt this lost since his brother died, leaving him all alone with his father, but this is so much worse. Because Stiles is more to him than a shield, because Stiles is just more.

X

Hospitals freak Erica out. Everyone in the pack knows this. Jackson always tries to take a shower before he sees Erica after a shift because he knows that the lingering smell of the hospital will fill her with anxiety and the only person who will be able to calm her down quickly is Stiles, although Derek is a close second.

So being here, in an actual hospital, without Stiles, yeah, that's not doing her any favors. She hardly notices when Isaac comes barreling in, she's so focused inward on her terror and on the need to just keep moving. As if as long as she doesn't stop and stay still for a moment and actually allow the information to sink in then this won't be happening.

"Where's Stiles?!" Sheriff Stilinski demands are he charges into the waiting room, causing all of them to break out of their reverie. "Where is my son!" Scott's disentangling himself from Allison for the first time since they showed up and is going to Stiles' dad, and the two break down in sobs, sobs that somehow seem worse than the ones that Lydia's been letting out all night.

And Erica had thought there was nothing worse than Lydia crying and actually meaning it. Apparently she was wrong. And she wanted Stiles to be there so they could share awkward oh-my-god-is-this-really-happening looks, and so that he can make it better. Because he's Batman and she's only Catwoman and Catwoman is awesome and everything, but sometimes, Batman's just necessary. Stiles is just necessary. All the time. He's never not necessary. She needs him. The Pack needs him. His Dad needs him. And maybe, most of all, Derek needs him.

But Erica can't think about that right now. She can't think about anything right now. She just has to keep moving, keep doing something, just keep on. She can't do anything else. She can't think right now. Otherwise she'll break. She knows it.

X

Allison's pretty sure that she has to keep it together, because no one else is going to. It's been hours since the accident happened and they're the only ones still in the waiting room. Lydia's cried herself to sleep in Derek's arms and Isaac's sitting on the floor at their feet, in his own little world. Jackson is so zoned out that Allison's pretty sure the only thing that would bring him back is for Stiles to appear out of nowhere, safe and whole. (She wishes more than a little that that would actually happen).

The Sheriff and Scott are comforting each other, and Allison tries not to be a little hurt that the second Sheriff Stilinski appeared Scott left her side for his, because she knows that they're both the two people in the world closest to Stiles and right now they need each other. But she still wishes that he'd stayed with her because she needs the distraction of trying to take care of Scott right now. Because if she doesn't have that then she might go crazy and she can't do that. Not now.

"You don't have to be perfect. You can get upset too," the voice in her head says, the one that sounds suspiciously like Stiles, the one that always convinces her to do things that she knows her parents won't like and that probably aren't the best idea, but god, she wants to listen to that voice. But this time, this time she can't.

Because no one else will keep it together because they can't. They're not human anymore, they can't understand the fact that this wasn't something they could protect Stiles from, and there's nothing they can do now to help.

It's strange to see them almost vibrating with the need to do something (and at least Erica's restlessness is more than just strange stillness, she's actually pacing), because normally that's Stiles' job. Allison doesn't like it that someone else is doing what Stiles should be here to do, but she shoves that down too. She knows why they're like this, she can see it in their faces, read it in their actions. Werewolves can sometimes be embarrassingly transparent.

She gets that they're feeling helpless, and she is too, but she can deal with that helpless feeling so much better. Because she's the other human in the Pack, so she knows that Stiles won't blame them for not saving him. Because how can you save someone from being human?

X

Boyd isn't sure why he feels like he should have seen this coming. This was all too good to be true. He should have known that it would end tragically. That his Pack would be ripped apart at the seams because while they're family, they're also friends and Boyd's always found friendship to be ridiculously fragile.

And the sad thing is, Stiles was the first real friend he made in the Pack. Sure, Derek's his Alpha and Isaac and Erica went through the first horrible full moon together with him, but it was Stiles who really made him feel like he belonged. Because Stiles understood what it felt like to be the outsider in a group of friends, and Boyd had never really managed to thank him enough for bringing him into this group.

Now he might never get to. That's what really makes him shut himself off from the rest of the Pack, the thought that they might never see Stiles again. And as selfish (and terrible and just awful) as it is, Boyd can't help but think about what will happen to him if Stiles doesn't make it. Because Boyd might be an outsider, but it's made him pretty good at seeing exactly how others' relationships works and Boyd isn't going to lie to himself that Stiles isn't essential to keeping this Pack working.

So Boyd's trying really hard not to think about how this is all going to end if Stiles doesn't make it. Because Boyd really doesn't want to go back to where he was in high school, and he really can't imagine it turning out any other way. The others wouldn't be able to see past their own grief enough to keep this going so everything will just end.

And that will be the most tragic end to anything that Boyd's ever had to face. It'll be hours spent in a depressing waiting room only for Stiles to never open his eyes again. So Boyd has to find something else to focus on soon, something that will keep them together. Because even if they lose Stiles, he can't let this end. (Even though, really, without Stiles it will be the end because nothing will ever be the same.)

X

Scott was pretty sure that he'd been on the verge of a panic attack ever since Derek had called him with the news. He'd had to wrap himself around Allison to try and keep control, and that had only taken the edge off. The panic was still there, just waiting for him to lose control. He didn't want to lose control if Stiles wouldn't be there to talk him through it, to sympathize that it had happened at all.

Stiles had always been the best at talking him through his asthma attacks, even better than his mom, and he'd always solved any problem that Scott had had. Scott couldn't even remember a time when Stiles hadn't been right beside him, even when it hadn't been Stiles' fight. Even when Stiles really should have stayed back because it was dangerous, but hadn't, because he'd known that they couldn't do anything without him.

When Sheriff Stilinski had arrived Scott had been relieved, because this was Stiles' dad and he'd make everything better, just as he always did when they were little. When all he did was hold Scott and cry, Scott felt like all his childhood illusions had been crushed (even though he knew Sheriff Stilinski wasn't Superman, the fact that Stiles' mom was dead was proof of that). Still, he doesn't let go because as dumb and obtuse as he can be, he knows that they need each other right now, because they're the ones who've always been with Stiles.

The two people in the world who've always stood beside him and they need each other because of that, because no one else will understand because they can remember a time without Stiles, because they can (maybe) go back to that time intact (or maybe just scarred). But Scott and Sheriff Stilinski? Right now, it feels like Stiles is all they have (and while that's not technically true for Scott, it sure feels like it because the Pack isn't Stiles. Isn't his best friend).

So when the doctor finally comes out, Scott can't help but feel like the entire world has stopped. Because he's so afraid that he's lost Stiles, lost the person who's shaped him more than even his mom. And because he knows, he's always known, that Stiles has always been too good to be true, and that one day he's going to be gone because his heart was just too big, too true, to survive in this dirty world. But God, Scott doesn't want that day to be today.

X

"We've done all that we can, but now the rest's up to him," the doctor had said but he can't give up hope now, because it's all he has left to keep him going. Because he can't lose Stiles, he just can't. He's already lost his wife, he can't lose his son too. So he chooses instead to believe that Stiles can pull through, because if anyone can, it's his son.

His beautiful, bright boy who even as a baby loved to smile and laugh and would babble on about anything, but especially loved to babble to his daddy. The boy who likes to think he's a man now, but will always be a little toddler to his father. The boy who couldn't stay still even in his sleep.

And he can't even process what's going on anymore, because there's his son, his Stiles, laying on the hospital bed in front of him, hooked up to what looks like a million machines and paler than he'd ever been (and as his dad, he's seen Stiles as pale as he'd thought possible during his panic attacks) and not moving. Which is what really gets to him, because Stiles is never still. He's physically incapable of being still.

Or, at least he was. And it's like this body might have a slight resemblance to his son, but it's not Stiles. It's not his son. His son's already gone from his side, from this cruel world. And he wonders if Stiles is already with his mother and if, when he dies, they'll be able to recognize him. Because he's not sure if they'll be able to, because he's not sure he's able to recognize himself.

But he can't think about that because Stiles is still here, hidden beneath the machines that are breathing for him. And he knows his son, knows that Stiles might want to see his mother more than anything, but he won't abandon his father. Because Stiles doesn't want to leave anyone alone, he's too afraid of being alone himself to do it to anyone else, let alone his father.

If Stiles dies, then he doesn't deserve to see his family again, because he couldn't protect the only thing he had left, his baby boy, from some drunk in a pick-up truck. So he'll try to believe that Stiles won't leave him, won't choose to go to heaven with his mother, where he's not sure he can follow them.

X

It's been two days since the accident and Derek has barely left the hospital. Barely left Stiles' side. He feels like he's going crazy and he hates it. He hates feeling like he's losing control because that's what his entire life is, being in control. So losing it like this, yeah, he's not handling it very well.

Maybe it would be easier to handle if it was anyone besides Stiles in that hospital bed, anyone besides his mate. But it is Stiles in that bed. It is Stiles who can't even breathe on his own yet, for all that the doctors said it's to be expected and that he's much more stable now that he's made it through the first night and day. Derek doesn't believe them.

He can hear the hesitation in their voices when they say that Stiles is stable and the fact that they're not lying, but that they never offer anything more. They don't say that he's getting better. Or that he should wake up soon. They say that he's stable, as if that's the answer to all questions.

Derek wants to scream and rage, but one look at Stiles and he's calming down again because he can't leave Stiles' side right now and he can't lose control if he wants to stay there. So he's holding onto his tenuous control for now, but it's a close call. Because he wants to be with Stiles for all the time he has left.

And even when that time is up, Derek knows he wants more. He's been alone for so long and now he finally has a Pack again, and more than that he has a mate, he has Stiles. And he's terrified that it's all going to end here, in a hospital after he failed to protect his mate from something he couldn't have seen coming.

Derek knows that if Stiles dies now that he'll never forgive himself for not saving him from that car accident, even though he knows there was nothing he could have done. Stiles was stubbornly human and that's how he would die, because he's too weak now for the bite, even if Derek could go against his wishes and turn him. So Derek's just going to pray that each moment lasts a lifetime if Stiles doesn't wake up. Because he can't go back to being alone again.

X

Stiles remembers the look on Lydia's face as the light came pouring in from behind him, highlighting everything about her. Then came the pain and he'd shut his eyes, so that his last sight will be of Lydia, laughing. Because he'd always thought she'd never laughed, really laughed, often enough. So he's glad that he got to see that one more time, even if that's the last thing he'll ever see.

Because everything has been black since that one last sight and everything hurts. So much and he wants to scream but he can't get the sound out. For awhile everything was quiet and it was so much better that way because it's hurting him so much to hear everyone he loves talking to him and about him and being in pain while he can't do anything.

He doesn't like not being able to comfort them, especially when he remembers snatches of Lydia in the ambulance, begging him to wake up, and then Jackson freaking out in the hospital. That had really thrown him, because wow, he knew that he and Jackson were Pack now, but he'd never really understood that to mean that Jackson cared as much about Stiles as Stiles did about Jackson. And then everything had been quiet again for awhile.

Stiles misses that quiet. The calm of it. The darkness that takes away the pain. Because when it's not quiet he's in so much pain. Not just physically, and, okay, yeah, physically he's hurting a hell of a lot, but also emotionally. Because everyone he loves is in pain because he won't wake up. It's tearing his heart apart to hear his dad and Scott andDerek breaking down without him. That's something he never thought would happen, something he never wanted to happen.

And through all of it, he can't help but feel like this is so totally unfair. He's a good guy. He's responsible and loving and cares about everyone. So why him? Why does everything have to happen to him?

So he lets the darkness embrace him for a little while, just to rest for a bit. He's gathering the strength he needs to go back to that life where he has to fight all the time for everything that matters. And he needs to rest first, because he's just so tired. But the fatigue isn't fading, if anything, he's getting more and more tired and the idea of waking up just seems more impossible.

But then the plea breaks through. "Please, Stiles. We need you." And suddenly he has the strength. Because his Pack needs him and they were always the source of his strength, his will to fight.

He opens his eyes.

A/N: So I actually wrote this weeks ago and it was my first Teen Wolf fic. Thought I would share it with all of you here, although it's been up on my tumblr for awhile now. There's actually a list of songs that goes with each part, but they're not really important. And hey, this might be a little sad, but at least it's not Slipping Away sad. There is a happy ending after all.