Chapter Text
“Scott!! Wait, stop!! Stop!! Don’t-”
Footsteps on the ground, heavy and hard.
A scream. Cutting through the crisp night air, a sound every single person heard.
Heart beating too fast, too fast, then stopping abruptly.
A hand resting on his shoulder.
"Liam!! Come on!!”
Liam woke up with a gasp, his hand clutching at his throat, as if he couldn’t breathe.
‘Relax, Liam,’ He thought to himself after looking around, ‘Breathe.’
He glanced at the clock beside his bed, seeing it flash 6:00 a.m. Tiredly, he rubbed his eyes and took a few moments to collect himself before tumbling out of bed. God, he needed to stop waking up like this.
Dragging himself to the kitchen, Liam made himself a cup of coffee and took an apple from the bowl on the counter. Settling himself at the table, he pulled out his tablet and got to work. He made sure the ship was all taken care of, using the cameras he’d set up a while ago. He surveyed the nooks and crannies of the ship, checking the controls as he went along. He scratched his scruff while he was at it, deep in thought.
Shaving seemed like a necessity, or did it? No one would see him. After all, it was just him in this lone spaceship. Slowly running out of food and water.
Way to feel depressed, huh?
As he thought, he glanced into the huge window across from the tiny kitchen. Where was he? In this huge universe, he was a tiny speck, lost in the middle of nowhere. No one would ever find him here, and he’d never have to see anyone. And yeah, it sucked that he was probably going to die out here alone, but it’d be better than going back to that god-forsaken place on Earth. He didn’t even like to think about it.
Liam had left when it got terrible. He’d joined a space program and quickly was sent to go explore the universe. Don’t mind the fact that he didn’t even care for space. He just couldn’t stand being there.
Scott had been taken. And Liam - Liam was his beta, his first beta. He had felt a responsibility to watch Scott’s back. When Scott was taken, and assumed dead, Liam fell into a deep depression. No one could help.
He remembered how Mason had done his best to help Liam. He’d tried so hard. Theo, too. God, Theo. He’d always been there, right beside Liam, always with a hand held out to save him. But there was nothing Theo or Mason could do. Liam wouldn’t allow them to help; wouldn’t allow them inside his mangled mess of a mind.
So, he’d up and left one day. He'd packed his bags, driven to a secret space program in the middle of a forest in Washington, and taken the first ship out of Earth. Scott was probably dead. There was no going back.
That had been eight years ago.
In the beginning, Liam kept in close contact with the scientists and engineers back home. He’d made friends with the young geniuses he reported back to, and found peace when talking with them.
One day, about two years after Liam had left Earth, the scientists stopped talking with him. It was sudden, as if contact was cut off. And there was no way to go back home...Liam wasn’t good with directions. So, knowing that he had about two years left of food if he spaced the supply out (no pun intended), he retired into a state of loneliness. He grew reserved, and quiet, sometimes not speaking for days on end. And when he did talk, it would be to himself, or to an inanimate object. His voice would crack and he’d feel like he was losing his humanity.
His anger receded, though. He realized after a few months that there was nothing to get angry about, because as it was, there was nothing. Nothing at all.
Sometimes, Liam longed to go home. He missed Mason’s dumb jokes, Scott’s warm smile, Kira’s big hugs, and even Theo’s constant teasing. Scratch that - he longed to go home a lot of the time. He missed his pack. He missed the feeling of solid earth beneath his feet, and nature, and water. He missed swimming at the beach, and laying underneath the night stars after a long day, Theo by his side as they bickered and laughed, Mason and Corey in Theo’s truck doing god knows what, and the rest of the pack spread out around him. He wished he could go home. But Liam knew he’d never be able to. He was in a situation where it was a lost cause. There just wasn’t any way to go home.
He’d write letters to his pack, his family, people he’d met before in Beacon Hills. He’d write stories in notebooks, filled to the brim with fantasy and history; science fiction and romance sometimes. He explored every genre he could remember, using his words to bring characters to life.
It, he supposed, was another way to hold onto his humanity. He could remember his past adventures, often using his friends as the characters in one way or another. He’d write about Lydia and Stiles kidnapping him and taking him to the Mall of America, and Scott being utterly panicked because yes it was April fools, but no, kidnapping a freshman in college and taking him halfway across the country wasn’t funny. In the end, he’d sent Malia and Theo to retrieve the three, holding onto Stiles and Lydia as if they were prisoners while Liam just sat and watched in shock. He had been really out of it that day; an important exam was due the next day and he’d been panicking slightly while Lydia dragged him from one store to another.
Looking back, Liam would do anything to change the story - to reverse everything. He’d ponder himself being taken in Scott’s place, begging whatever god was out there to send him back. But no one was there. No one.
Liam was running out of food. He’d gotten down to eat a piece of re-hydrated fruit for breakfast and nothing else. But even that supply was depleting.
He knew he was going to die. But at 24? Really? It wasn’t fair.
He broke down into tears the first time he realized he was gonna die. But he knew there was nothing he could do about it, so after ten times where he’d had a mental breakdown, he just stopped. In a way, he was just accepting his fate. He grew slow and sluggish, his body already thin and tired. He stopped looking out of the window to try and see his home planet; instead, he slept a lot, reserving his energy for monitoring the ship.
There was nothing he could do.
‘I swear to god Liam! Keep your goddamn eyes open!’
Warm arms encased him, keeping him upright. He could feel blood seeping down his arms. He struggled to open his eyes, his body shutting down slowly.
‘Stiles! Drive faster!’ The person holding him was talking to someone else, but Liam’s mind couldn’t understand what was happening. He kept going in and out of conscious, his mind betraying him.
Wait.
Liam opened his eyes slowly, making out a figure. The figure turned, a girl, with fiery red hair he assumed. Her face looked gaunt, tired, yet determined.
Liam turned, trying to look at the person holding him. It was a boy, his hands wrapped around Liam tightly and a worried look on his face. He too looked incredibly tired.
Liam reached for his face, trying to turn him towards his body. His face was smeared with dirt, but when he glanced at Liam, green eyes stared into blue ones.
Green eyes. Green eyes. Green -
Liam woke up abruptly, his eyes filled with tears. He hated these types of dreams, the ones that were flashbacks of terrible times. He knew he dreamed of his friends, of Theo, of the monsters that he and his pack had defeated in the past.
God, he missed them.
How were they? He found himself wondering how his friends were these days. Had Mason and Corey gotten married? They were 24; they’d probably want to adopt kids or something! Had Lydia and Stiles gotten married? Did they still see each other? Did the pack still see each other?
Was Theo okay?
Before Liam had left, he’d been in deep depression. He remembered how sometimes, Mason and Corey would drag him out of the house to try and go do something fun, only for something to trigger Liam’s memory of Scott and what had happened the night he was kidnapped. He’d start crying in the middle of the store, his body shaking as he quietly sobbed. In those cases, Mason would do his best to comfort his best friend while Corey would call Theo to come take him home.
The older pack members were facing their own depression, especially Stiles, Malia, and Lydia, but they were halfway across the world, respectively, which left the younger pack members in Beacon Hills. More often than not, as Corey and Mason would go back to college in LA (and Liam refused to go back to college after Scott disappeared) he’d find himself in Theo’s car, or in Theo’s arms as they lay in Liam’s bed after Liam had a terrible nightmare.
Liam would smile sometimes, forgetting the bad times when he saw Theo sleeping soundly next to him, his face peaceful and his hair messy. Moments like these were the moments Liam looked back on when he felt devastated.
He hoped Theo was alright. He missed him so much; someone to bicker with, to talk with, to lose himself in a conversation with. They used to talk about the entire world, their hopes and dreams, Theo’s will to get his GED and enroll in college maybe.
But everything changed after Scott was taken.
Liam supposed it was time to get out of bed. He couldn’t really stay lounging around all day, no matter the case. He needed to check the ship, to get a bite of something, to do some sit-ups (even though his body had not much muscle to help him).
He sat up, stretching his limbs and moving his body out of the comforting mattress. He made it up, going to the bathroom to wash his face and fix himself for the day. He stared into the small mirror, observing his dull blue eyes, his light scruff, his gaunt cheeks.
‘No time to feel terrible about yourself,’ He said to himself as he exited the small bathroom after washing himself up, ‘Or wait! You have plenty of time to feel terrible about yourself! You’ll be stuck here for eternity! Am I right?’
He went to go grab his coffee, passing the window without a glance. Suddenly he stopped. He had seen something in his peripheral vision; something big, and blue, and just there.
‘Oh my god.’
He hurriedly walked back to the window, peering outside.
Uranus.
He was in his solar system!
“Perfect timing, God,” He muttered, quickly hurrying to the cockpit. He hadn’t been inside it for so long, after giving up hope, but he had passed Uranus. And he could see Saturn coming up ahead.
He sat behind the controls, buckling his seat belt.
Could this be real? Was Liam actually going home?
He hit the accelerator, gaining speed as he passed Saturn and its rings.
Soon after, he saw Jupiter, and then Mars!
Tears started to form in his eyes. He was finally going home.
He couldn’t wait to see Theo, and Stiles, and Lydia, and Mason! He would see every single pack member, every single person he’d missed for so long, eight years, even Chris and Melissa and the Sheriff.
He didn’t realize until after passing Mars that tears were streaming down his cheeks, his heart beating so fast. Liam was full out sobbing once he passed the moon. He directed himself to California, his vision blurring and a choked out sob escaping his lips. Earth. His beautiful home planet. God. It had been eight years. And he just wanted to go home.
‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you-’ The mantra kept repeating in his head. He was so happy. So so happy. His planet. The sparkling blue seas, the bright green trees and plants, the crisp white snow.
He hit the ground.
Dust settled.
He rushed to the door, struggling to open it as his hands were shaking. His tears covered his cheeks, his eyes so red. He slowly opened the door, struggling to get air through his nose as his sobs were so delightfully painful.
He was home! He was home!
But as Liam Dunbar stepped out into the place he knew as Beacon Hills, he stopped.
It was abandoned, not a single heartbeat for miles and miles.
What the hell happened here?