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The last thing he could remember was searing pain. Like nothing he'd ever felt before in his entire life. He was burning from the inside out and he couldn't hold on to reality. Was he really married to Derek? Had he really just given birth to four werewolf cubs? Was he dying?
He couldn't feel anything now. Not with the blackness closing in around him and his arms and legs felt fuzzy, like he'd slept on them wrong. The static buzzing in his head told him that he was asleep or passed out. And there was just nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He couldn't hear Derek's voice. Couldn't feel his arms around him anymore. Couldn't feel Scott's hand in his or his father's. He hadn't even heard the last child cry. Didn't know if it was a boy or a girl. Or if he would even get to help raise them, to see them grow up.
Suddenly, he was terrified. Not of death. No, he'd already done the hard part, the painful stuff. He knew that he'd already laid on the table and bled out in front of his friends and family. Knew that his guts were literally spilled. He wondered morbidly if Deaton would bother to sew him back up before they put him in the ground. It wouldn't matter anyways. It would never heal. Just a big ugly gash across his body that would never close up. Never scar over. Never heal. His guts would be on display for the world for the rest of eternity.
He wasn't afraid of death but of being dead. He was afraid of never getting to see or hold his children. To never know if they would look more like him or Derek. If they would be human or wolf. He would never get to see if they got his nose, his mother's nose and Derek's eyes. He would never wake up next to Derek again. He would never get to enjoy a lazy weekend morning making pancakes and bacon with his husband while the kids watched cartoons. He would never get to dump them off on Scott so he and Derek could have date night. He'd never hear his kids call his father gramps or pop pop. And it terrified him. It terrified him to think of it.
He looked around, eyes wide open and watched the blackness fade into white. Watched the world around him lighten and he knew he was dead. He knew that he had just spent the last moments of his life worrying about being dead and now here he was. Dead. He wondered if it would be the abyss that he expected. If he would float aimlessly forever or if there really was an afterlife after all. He wondered if he would see his mom.
As if on cue, there she was. Standing in front of him with her eyes shining the same tawny amber color as his and her nose shaped exactly the same. She was exactly as he remembered her. She smiled at him and he felt the tears roll down his cheeks.
"Mom?" He asked.
She nodded in response.
"Am I dead? I have to be dead, right?"
She just nodded again.
"What happens now?" he asked.
She held her hand out for him to take. He reached out and took it and instantly closed his eyes. He could see it all, the life he was supposed to have. He saw his children on their birthday, blowing out candles and opening presents, he saw first days of school and school pictures. He saw Christmases with the pack and his dad beaming proudly at the life that they built up around them. He saw Scott and Allison's kids playing with his own along with Erica and Boyd's daughters, Lydia and Jackson's son sneering at the others as his mother chastised him. He saw Isaac with a faceless person. He couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman. Peter with his nieces and nephew and a child that didn't have a face. He saw himself packing up four cars simultaneously and then watching his children drive off to college. He saw himself growing old with Derek at his side.
He opened his eyes as a sob escaped him and his mother dropped his hand.
"That's what was supposed to happen. What really happens?"
His mother gave him a small, sad smile and shook her head. Crushing despair fell over Stiles' head and he screamed out loud. Through his own anguish he heard his mother's voice.
"It's not time. It's not time. It's too soon. GO BACK!" She told him. He opened his eyes just in time to see her eyes right in front of his as her body passed through his and he was plunged back into the cold, lonely darkness.