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Derek stood behind the table, making sure all the tablets were set up for signing in while Erica made sure the partitions between the screening stations were in the proper locations to ensure privacy. Boyd stood next to a table filled with boxes of cookies and juice. Melissa, a nurse from the local hospital and a regular volunteer double-checked the medical supplies.
“Are we ready?” Derek called out, receiving affirmative responses from everyone in the room.
The scheduled start time was less than five minutes away and they were booked with just enough space for two walk-ins per hour. A few of the names on the appointments were familiar but there were some that were new to him. His eyes traced over the only appointment in the last time slot. Even after googling for help, he couldn’t even begin to pronounce the first name. Something about the last name was familiar, though he couldn’t place it.
He didn’t have time to worry about it when the first appointment walked in the door. “Good morning, Ms. Martin. A pleasure to see you, as always,” Derek greeted as the petite redhead made her way to one of the tablets.
“Hello, Derek,” she returned as she hit a couple of things on the computer before heading over to Erica for her screening. There was very little chance of her not passing the screening. Lydia Martin was in excellent health.
The day passed in a mad rush. Every walk-in appointment was filled and Melissa ended up calling another friend of hers from the hospital to come help so that they could accommodate more people. They all snacked on the cookies and juice when lunchtime came and went without anybody slowing down.
Before Derek knew it, the room emptied out except for the volunteers and employees. Glancing at the schedule, he saw that only unpronounceable’s name remained. He looked up at the clock on the wall, the minute hand ticking over to four-thirty just as someone entered the room.
“Hello?” they asked nervously and Derek turned to find himself frozen in place.
“Stiles?” he asked. The name tumbled off his lips before the memories fully formed.
Stiles ran a hand over his hair, looking nervous and a bit pale. “Hey, Derek. I forgot you worked for the Red Cross.”
Derek nodded, his shoulders tensing up as he pointed to one of the tablets. He started his usual spiel for blood donation, stopping when Stiles laid a hand on his arm. Looking up, their eyes met and Derek allowed his mind to fall back into memories.
He’d met Stiles a couple of months earlier at a First Aid class taught at the high school. Derek had volunteered to teach CPR and Stiles had signed up for the class. All the teachers at the school were required to take the course. Normally, Derek enjoyed instructing, but there were a lot of young female teachers at Beacon Hills High School and all of them decided that Derek was more interesting than learning how to save a life.
Stiles took the instructions seriously and had hung around after training asking intelligent questions that Derek found he enjoyed answering. Stiles had helped clean up the equipment while they’d talked and when the janitors came in and kicked them out, Derek had shyly suggested they continue talking over dinner.
Stiles had agreed eagerly, and they decided to meet at a diner at the edge of town after Derek dropped off his equipment and changed out of his work polo. Derek had sped home to shower and change before heading to the diner. He’d figured Stiles would have beat him there because he’d been held up by traffic backup due to an accident between his apartment and the restaurant.
He grabbed a table and ordered a glass of water, wanting to wait until Stiles arrived to order. He waited half an hour before getting an order of mozzarella sticks to pass the time. When Stiles still hadn’t shown up after an hour, Derek cursed that he hadn’t gotten Stiles’ number.
Leaving the diner, he hurried through the rain that had begun falling. On the drive home, he tried not to wonder if he’d misread Stiles. He allowed himself to be momentarily distracted as he drove past the scene of the earlier accident, a wrecker hauling away what might have been a Jeep at one point. As morbid as the thought was, Derek couldn’t help thinking at least someone was having a worse day than him.
Now, Stiles stood in front of him, looking as good as he had that night, and Derek couldn’t find words. “I...I want to explain,” Stiles said, his voice rougher than Derek remembered, and suddenly Derek didn’t want to hear anything Stiles had to say.
Shaking his head, Derek pulled on his professional mask and began his spiel again. Stiles nodded and answered the questions on the tablet before Erica came to get him for his screening. He heard a yelp from behind the curtain and Erica’s teasing tone. A few minutes later, Erica led Stiles out from behind the divider towards Melissa, and Derek realized that he hadn’t moved.
“Stiles!” Melissa greeted, pulling him into a hug before pulling back and holding him at arm’s length. “You’re looking good. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Stiles nodded, his face a bit pale, and Derek ducked behind the divider to check his paperwork. Erica tried to yank it back from him, but Derek saw the numbers he wanted. They were within normal range. He could hear Melissa talking Stiles through the process, her voice more soothing than usual.
He heard a whimper, and peeking around the corner, he saw Melissa taping over the needle she’d just put into Stiles’ arm. He could see the trembling in Stiles’ limbs as Melissa squatted on the floor next to him, her brown eyes shadowed with concern. Derek noticed Boyd edging closer to the chair where Stiles reclined.
Erica nudged Derek out of her way as she cleaned up the medical equipment behind the dividers. She crossed the room, arms loaded down, smiling at Stiles. When she passed him, she looked up at Derek with worried eyes. Derek hurried over to Stiles’ side across from Melissa, who gave him a tight smile.
“It’s okay, Stiles,” she said. “You’re doing great.” She looked back up at Derek. “Stiles is my son’s best friend. They’ve known each other since kindergarten.”
“Scott,” Derek said, remembering Stiles mentioning him when they’d met.
“You know him?” Melissa asked.
Derek shook his head. “Stiles and I met-” He cut off when Stiles’ eyes rolled back into his head, and he groaned.
Melissa quickly removed the needle from his arm while Derek grabbed smelling salts from the small pouch hanging off the chair. Breaking the capsule beneath Stiles’ nose, he let out a breath of relief when Stiles’ eyes jerked open, and he sucked in a large breath.
“Hey, Stiles,” Derek said, studying his face. It wasn’t the first time someone had passed out while donating blood, but it was the first time Derek felt this worried. “How are you feeling?”
“Nauseous. Dizzy,” he answered. Boyd appeared with a water bottle, handing it to Derek, who twisted off the cap and held it to Stiles’ lips while Melissa sat the chair higher.
Stiles sipped at the bottle, sitting back when he was done and letting out a sigh. “I tried,” he said to Melissa, who gave him a sad smile. Tears sprang to his eyes. “Dammit, I wanted to do it.”
Derek looked between Stiles and Melissa. “What’s going on? What did you want to do?”
“Donate blood even though I’m terrified of needles,” Stiles muttered. “I wanted to save someone’s life like mine got saved.”
Derek’s head spun as he gaped. “What?” Stiles hadn’t mentioned ever being on the verge of death, and that was usually the first thing people told him when they found out he worked for the Red Cross.
Melissa glared at Derek, and he backed away, moving to start cleaning up and keeping an eye on Melissa and Stiles. He frowned when Melissa led him out of the room once color returned to Stiles’ cheeks. Melissa returned a few minutes later, joining in on cleaning up the room. They had done this many times, so the entire process only took about ten minutes. Derek stopped himself from asking what had happened to Stiles about a hundred times during the cleanup.
Melissa said her goodbyes, hugging Erica and Boyd before turning to Derek and fixing him with a look. “He’s alright,” she told him. “I know you worry when someone passes out.”
Derek shook his head. “I met Stiles once,” he told her.
Melissa nodded. “He told me.”
Derek snorted. “I doubt it.”
Melissa laid a hand on Derek’s arm, waiting until he looked her in the face. “Don’t doubt it,” she said. “He talked about you a lot, actually.” Derek wanted to roll his eyes, but something in the steadiness of Melissa’s gaze told him that she spoke only the truth.
They stood in silence for a moment before Melissa pulled him into a hug, rubbing her hand over his hair when she pulled away. “Be good,” she told him.
“No,” he responded, and they shared a laugh over the familiar banter.
Derek was the last to leave, responsible for getting the equipment into the truck and back to the office. He shouldered one of the bags and headed for the door, stopping when he stepped into the hallway and found Stiles leaning against the opposite wall. He looked at Derek as he sipped at the juice box he held in one hand, the other occupied with a bag of cookies.
“Hello,” Derek said, surprised. “I thought you’d left.”
“Melissa told me to eat all of these cookies and drink this juice before I even thought about getting behind the wheel,” Stiles explained, holding up the objects.
“Makes sense,” Derek said. “You should probably be sitting down, though.”
Stiles chuckled. “I was, but my butt went numb.”
Derek snorted out a laugh at the bluntness of his words. “Well…I should be heading out,” Derek said, indicating the bag over his shoulder. “I have a lot to load into the truck.”
“I can help,” Stiles offered.
“You shouldn’t do any strenuous activities after donating blood,” Derek responded, looking at the bandage wrapped around Stiles’ elbow.
“Didn’t really donate much,” Stiles argued, frowning and tugging down the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“All the more reason to be careful.” Stiles frown deepened and he started to turn towards the door. “You could, uh, keep my company.”
“Only if you let me explain what happened that night,” Stiles countered, the smile on his face fading and actual fear shining in his eyes.
Derek pressed his lips together and nodded, heading for the elevator. Stiles fell into step next to him and Derek noticed that he kept one hand close to the wall as they walked, occasionally running his fingertips over the chair railing someone thought made the old building look classy. Stiles didn’t start speaking until they were closed inside the elevator car.
“I kind of want to ask your phone number before we do anything else, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to give it to me,” Stiles said, looking up at Derek hopefully. Derek said nothing in response and Stiles’ face fell. “I really wanted to meet you at the diner that night.”
“And yet you didn’t show,” Derek pointed out, wincing at the residual hurt that flared through him.
Stiles sighed, running a hand through his hair, his hand lifting the locks that fell across his forehead to reveal a scar along the hairline. A scar Derek didn’t remember seeing when he’d first met Stiles. “What way did you take to the diner?”
“What?” Derek asked, confused by the change in the subject. Stiles repeated the question. “Main street from Parker.”
“Do you remember seeing an accident about a mile from the diner? A blue Jeep and a silver Porsche?” Stiles asked. Derek nodded, remembering seeing the remnants of a totaled Jeep and telling Stiles as much. “That was Roscoe. He belonged to my mom and when I turned sixteen, my dad gave him to me.”
Stiles’ words took a second to make sense to Derek, but when they did, he thought about his earlier words after he’d woken up and the scar on his forehead. “How bad was it? What happened? Are you okay now?”
Stiles smiled tightly as the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, and they headed towards the parking lot. “I’m more or less okay. My balance is a little off sometimes.” He reached out and brushed his fingers against the walls, and Derek noticed the sway in his step, “As for what happened, a drunk driver ran a stop sign and t-boned me. And how bad was that I was technically dead when they pulled me out of the Jeep.”
“Dead?”
“No pulse, no breath sounds. Thankfully, we weren’t far from the firehouse, so they were able to revive me. You could say they resurrected me. It sounds cooler, at least.”
“Next, you’ll be telling me that Scott performed a ritual in the middle of the night over your grave,” Derek said, relieved when Stiles cracked a smile in his direction.
“He would never, not after what happened to Buffy. Besides, Scott is a vet, not one of the paramedics that saved me, although that was just the beginning. I flatlined twice more on the way to the hospital.”
Stiles stopped talking when they reached the truck. Derek found Boyd leaning against it, holding his hand out. “What?” Derek asked.
“Melissa and Erica told me I should take the stuff back tonight,” he responded with a shrug.
Derek didn’t understand what was happening. He jumped when Boyd reached out and took the bag off his shoulder and the keys out of his hand. He threw the bag in the truck and then headed back into the building, leaving Derek staring after him.
“I don’t have a way back to my car,” he said, starting to walk after Boyd.
Stiles reached out and touched his shoulder. “I can take you there,” he offered. “Or we could get that dinner we missed out on, and I could finish explaining.”
Derek smiled, feeling a bit nervous. “I think I’d like that.” He knew that Stiles deserved another chance. What had happened last time wasn’t his fault, after all.
He followed Stiles to his car, a black Range Rover that didn’t seem to fit him. “It’s Scott’s,” he explained when Derek said as much. “I haven’t gotten around to getting my own car yet. I still get a bit nervous behind the wheel.” He gave Derek a shy look. “You don’t have to ride with me if you don’t want to.”
“I trust you,” Derek said, surprised that he meant the words.
As they pulled out of the lot, Stiles continued talking. “I had a couple of surgeries due to bleeding on my brain. I lost a lot of blood and needed donations. I’m AB Negative, and I know you know what that means.”
Derek nodded. AB Negative was the rarest blood type in the world. It was always a challenge to get enough AB Negative donors to their drives. It really made the loss of Stiles’ donation that day even more tragic.
“Thankfully, the hospital had enough O Negative to give to me but they didn’t have any AB Negative,” Stiles explained. “When I found that out, that I could’ve died without the blood I did get, I vowed to give back as soon as I could. Today was the first day I was eligible, finally being free of interfering medication.”
Derek nodded. “You tried, though.”
“And failed,” Stiles muttered. His shoulders tensed and Derek looked out the window to see the scene of the accident, a small wreath of flowers was tied to the stop sign. “The kid driving the Porsche didn’t make it.” Stiles sounded sad. “I replace the wreath every couple of months.”
Derek looked at him in shock. “He nearly killed you,” Derek said.
“Technically, he did kill me,” Stiles pointed out. “Not funny, I know,” he continued after a moment. “And he killed himself. The difference is that he stayed dead and everybody should be remembered. It was a terrible accident.”
“He was drunk.”
Stiles nodded. “He deserved to go to jail, not die.” Derek conceded the point as they pulled into the diner parking lot.
They got out of the car and headed towards the door. Derek stopped Stiles before he pulled it open. “Hey, can I maybe get your phone number before we go inside?”
Stiles glanced at the miniscule space between themselves and the door. “Do you think something is going to happen between here and there?”
“I didn’t think anything would happen last time,” Derek pointed out and Stiles nodded, digging out his phone and handing it over to Derek. “There is no way that I am going to blow this second chance.”
Stiles laughed, taking his phone back and sending a text off to Derek before heading inside. Derek glanced down at the text from Stiles. “Next time I try to donate. Will you hold my hand?” Smiling, Derek ran inside after Stiles, ready to start on that hand holding as soon as possible.