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Once upon a time, a teenager who had lost everyone he had ever loved made an enormous sacrifice to go back in time and save them all. Well… if nineteen still counts as a teenager. And if gaining everyone he lost back and saving his family counts as enormous sacrifice. Eh… details.
Sometimes Stiles looked back on the life he left behind and just… cringed. They had all made so many mistakes. They had all lost so much. He wanted more than anything to give everyone in his former pack the happy endings they deserved- even the ones who had hurt him in the end. He still loved them. So far, he was off to a good start. Unfortunately, at twelve years old (physically, not mentally), there wasn’t much he could do on his own.
At this particular time, he was very focused on his memories of Malia. After eliminating the Argent threat, he was going through his mental list of pack members, making sure that all of them were on the right path. Malia was the first bump in that road.
He’d tried to find records of the car accident on his own, but he was rarely left on his own and this wasn’t something he wanted to draw attention to. Not yet. When he couldn’t find the car accident, he started casually asking around school about Malia Tate. Nobody recognized her name. It was as though she just didn’t exist, but that couldn’t be right.
Just when he was about to give up, a quiet girl that he’d never noticed in either life approached him. “Why are you looking for Malia?”
“Hello to you, too,” he replied, raising his eyebrows.
“Hi,” she rolled her eyes. “Malia?”
“She’s an old friend,” Stiles told her carefully. “We lost touch.”
“No, you weren’t,” the girl scowled. “I would know.”
“How?” Stiles asked suspiciously. He wasn’t quite convinced that this girl wasn’t trying to mess with him. He didn’t even know her name.
“I was her neighbor, and she was my best friend,” the girl told him, meeting his gaze steadily. “She would have mentioned you if you were friends.”
“Was?” he pressed, ignoring the rest of her comment. She eyed him carefully as she made up her mind.
“She moved away. A lady showed up early one morning and took her away,” the girl told him after a few moments of consideration.
“A lady?” Stiles asked, confused. Malia’s biological mother wouldn’t have knocked on the door, as he well knew.
“My mom thinks it was child services, but…” she hesitated. “Malia was happy. Her parents loved her, and they took really good care of her. They never would have hurt her. And her sister used to follow her around like she hung the moon.”
“So… definitely not child services,” Stiles sighed to himself. “How long ago was this?”
“It was… a year ago,” the girl told him. “Almost exactly.”
A year ago was when Stiles had arrived in this world and started causing all of the changes to the way he knew things to be. It made sense, in a twisted way, that Malia’s story had changed so much even though he’d never so much as seen her here. He had a sinking suspicion that he knew who this woman had been. This was bad.
“Thank you,” he told the girl. “Do you know where she is now?”
“No,” she sighed. “I never saw her again.”
“Okay,” Stiles nodded, heart racing. He could see Cora frowning at him from down the hall. “Okay, thank you.”
If he was right- and he usually was- Kate Argent had gotten her hands on Malia. Stiles didn’t have much hope of finding her alive, but he felt that he owed it to her to try. At the very least, he owed it to Peter, even though he didn’t remember her yet. Once he found her, dead or alive, he intended to make Talia give those memories back to Peter.
He hit another dead end almost immediately. His only idea had been to contact Chris, but the hunter refused to take his calls. It made sense, he supposed, since he was part of the pack who had killed his family- even if it had been self defense. He couldn’t like them very much. Kate left no record of anything she had done in Beacon Hills, and Malia’s parents wouldn’t talk about her at all. Especially not to a child who asked too many awkward questions.
There were no adoption records in Beacon Hills for anyone by the name of Malia- Tate or Hale. He’d gotten caught on the police computer before he could pull up the records for the Argents. Tonya had not been very happy to find him on the database when she came back from the bathroom, but not even the disappointed look on his father’s face as he drove him to the Hale house was enough to slow him down.
“Who even is Malia?” Scott asked one night as they played their video game side by side. “You keep bringing her up lately, but I don’t think you mentioned her before a few weeks ago.”
“I probably didn’t,” Stiles agreed. He paused the game. “I don’t know how all of it really happened here, because it looks like my arrival shook things up and I didn’t know the full story before I came anyway. Peter was with Olivia and he had Faye, but… I have a guess or two on how it all went down.”
“What?” Scott asked, confused.
“I’m guessing that Talia sent Peter to Mexico to deal with a big family of hunters, as her second. She can’t really leave Beacon Hills, you know? I know that he met a really strong Were-Coyote down there that calls herself the Desert Wolf, and… um…” he trailed off, wincing. “He forgot about Olivia?”
“Ew,” Scott said, wrinkling his nose when he realize what exactly Stiles had meant.
“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “Anyways, the negotiation with the hunters lasted just over nine months, and Peter ended up coming home with a baby that the Desert Wolf just… didn’t want.”
“Dude,” Scott said softly.
“It gets worse. Of course he’d remember Olivia on his way back to her influence, so he probably panicked when he got closer to Beacon Hills. He would have called Talia, because as both his sister and his alpha it’s her job to help with problems like this. He was young, he was dumb, and he didn’t know what to do with a baby that was not his wife’s. Talia had to be mad, I assume,” Stiles continued. It was bad, and he knew it.
“What I know is that Talia gave the baby to a family that she knew and trusted, and then to punish Peter… or maybe to protect him, she used her alpha power to take all of his memories of the Desert Wolf and Malia,” he finished.
“Dude,” Scott repeated, game completely forgotten at this point.
“So one of two things could have happened from there… and I doubt Malia did very well with either of them,” Stiles sighed.
“The Argents?” Scott asked hesitantly.
“Or Olivia,” Stiles nodded. “One of them found out about her and stole her from the Tates. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than what happened in my world.”
“I’m scared to ask,” Scott sighed, already looking sad.
“Well…” he almost didn’t want to tell Scott. “In my world, just after the Hale fire, the Desert Wolf finally tracked Malia down. She had it in her head that killing her daughter would make her stronger. She picked a full moon and attacked, causing a car accident that killed Malia’s adopted mom and sister. Malia survived, fooling her mother by sheer luck. She had shifted to a full coyote, the way Talia can become a full wolf, and she was too traumatized to turn back. She lived in the woods as a wild coyote for years before we found her.”
“It just gets worse the longer you talk about it,” Scott informed him.
“Believe me, I know,” he sighed. “But she overcame all of it.”
“And we helped?” Scott asked quietly. Stiles didn’t let himself hesitate when he answered. He owed this to Scott.
“We helped,” he confirmed with a smile. He didn’t see the need to share all of the ways that they also hurt her. It was better to focus on the good.
“Good,” Scott grinned. “And we can help her again when we find her.”
“… Yeah, of course,” Stiles agreed. He couldn’t bring himself to point out the fact that she almost definitely hadn’t survived whatever had happened to her this time.
If Kate had been the one to take her, it was because she was a were-coyote and had shifted at just the wrong moment. There was absolutely no chance that the Argents had found out about Malia’s heritage; Talia and Stiles were the only two people in the world who had known at that time. Not even the Desert Wolf had known that her daughter was a Hale. (He vividly remembered Peter saying that their relationship had never included talking, and he wished that he could forget.) Kate would have tortured her and killed her slowly. Or maybe she would have kept her locked up somewhere. His only hope was that Malia would have escaped after Kate’s death and gone into the woods as she had before. He could track and save coyote- Malia.
If Olivia had gotten her hands on her, it was because she’d used her powers on Talia and gotten the truth out of her. There was no chance in Hell that Olivia hadn’t drowned her the moment she’d gotten her hands on her. If Olivia was behind it all, Stiles would be finding a body of the girl he used to love. It would not be a good time.
“Let’s finish the game,” Stiles said, forcing himself to stop thinking about it. He’d go back to looking tomorrow.
Alan was still wary of Stiles. He was teaching him slowly, giving him books on runes and blocks of wood to practice with. Stiles had only just convinced him to teach him something other than runes, and they were diving into the world of fire. It was what Stiles knew the most about, having studied as much as he could to prevent a house fire before he came back in time. He’d been toying with the idea of a tracking spell, though.
“So, hypothetically, if I’d lost someone and needed to find them, how would I do that?” Stiles asked as he settled into his chair for the evening. Alan raised an eyebrow and stayed silent. “Magically,” he added, though it wasn’t necessary.
“Who have you lost?” Alan asked, keeping his tone neutral.
“I said it was hypothetical,” Stiles pointed out. “I haven’t lost anyone.”
“Talia mentioned that you’ve been very focused on something lately. She’s worried about you. She mentioned that you were caught searching through a police computer. Is this connected?” Alan pressed gently.
“You know what, I’ll look on my own time,” Stiles grumbled, pulling his marker out of his pocket. Alan sighed.
“I’ll teach you a tracking spell if you promise me that you won’t use it to get yourself into trouble,” he conceded after a few more moments. Stiles had to resist the urge to pump his fist in the air. It was much harder to get the Deaton from his world to agree to things like this. Talia Hale was a good influence on him.
“I promise,” he agreed dutifully. Alan did not look like he believed him, but he offered no more protest. Instead, he pulled down an older tome and flipped carefully to a chapter in the back.
“Tracking is really quite simple. It’s best if you have an object that belongs to whoever you seek, but memories work just as well,” he explained as he passed the book to Stiles. Stiles hesitated, looking down at the pages.
“What if my memories haven’t strictly happened yet?” he asked after a few seconds. Alan gave him an exasperated look. “Hypothetically!”
“Mhmm,” he hummed, looking like he wanted to roll his eyes. “If they’re strong memories of this person, it shouldn’t matter when they are to happen, or even if they’ll come to pass at all. Magic is all about emotion.”
“It is?” Stiles asked, leaning forward in his curiosity. “Is that why I feel stronger when I’m angry or… thinking of the past?”
“Yes,” Alan agreed. “Werewolves need anchors to remain human, as you well know. You are on your way to becoming a very powerful mage, should you continue on your current path. You will need to find an anchor to help with your control, as well.”
“That’s… huh,” Stiles said quietly. “It can be anything?”
“That’s a lesson for another day, Stiles. Do you still want to learn the tracking spell?” Alan replied, giving him a small smile. Stiles nodded quickly. “I thought so. To perform the spell, you simply close your eyes and focus your entire mind on the person you seek. Think of your strongest memories with them, and let that emotion fill you. Picture a string attached somewhere to your body. Follow it in your mind, knowing with all of your heart that the person you seek is at the other side. If done successfully, you’ll feel the tug on the string until you’re seeing them in person.”
“It’s that easy?” Stiles asked, feeling like there must be a catch. Nothing was ever so simple.
“Is it easy for you to concentrate on just one single thing?” Alan pointed out, much to Stiles’ annoyance. He wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t need to point it out.
“Yeah, fine,” he frowned. “Easy was the wrong word, I see that now. But you know what I meant. There’s no extra element? Nothing I have to be holding or chanting? No runes?”
“Just your memories and a feeling,” Alan nodded. “You should be able to perform it tonight, if you want to.”
“Are you going to warn Talia as soon as I leave?” he asked, already knowing the answer. It wasn’t like she’d be able to stop him, with his head start and her not knowing where he was going, but it would be frustrating.
“Someone should know what you’re doing,” Alan told him gently.
“It’s not enough that you know?” Stiles replied, crossing his arms. Alan shook his head. “Fine. But at least promise me you’ll wait until I’m actually gone, and not just outside the door.”
“I can do that,” Alan agreed after a moment. “Only because I can see that this is important to you, and I respect that.”
“Thank you,” Stiles said softly.
When Alan had said there would be a tug on the string, he had not mentioned how insistent that tugging was going to be. Worse, though, was the fact that he’d been walking for a while now, and the tugging was very much taking him out of Beacon Hills. He wasn’t going to be able to walk to wherever Malia was, and the tugging wasn’t going away. He didn’t know how to cancel the spell, but he refused to call Alan for help.
Just as he was getting too tired to keep walking, Talia’s silver volvo pulled up beside him. He heard the lock click, and he only hesitated for a moment before giving up and climbing in. She let him buckle up in silence, not looking over at him. Once he was secure, she started driving. He assumed she was going to turn around and take him home (which would hurt, thanks to the spell) but she kept driving out of Beacon Hills.
“Where are we going?” Stiles asked quietly. She ignored him. He didn’t exactly do well in silence, but he was willing to try as long as she wasn’t yelling at him. He didn’t speak again, though he did occasionally point the way for Talia.
She pulled into a parking space at a park three towns over from Beacon Hills, and they sat in silence as they watched a small group of kids around Stiles’ physical age sitting around and playing with some kind of lawn game. It took him a few minutes to realize that one of them was definitely Malia.
“What-“ he gasped, looking over at Talia quickly. “She’s alive?”
“Of course she is,” Talia agreed quietly. “I wouldn’t let anyone in my family die if I had any way to prevent it.”
“But… you gave her away, and you took all of Peter’s memories of her! You didn’t want her to be part of the Hale family,” Stiles pointed out, confused. Talia turned her full attention to him, flashing her eyes angrily.
“I did not-“ she stopped herself, taking a deep breath. “Sometimes I forget that I wasn’t around in your time. You do not fully know me, just as I do not fully know you. But I had thought that you trusted me more than that.”
“It’s not about trust,” Stiles argued.
“It is,” she sighed. “I will tell you what happened, but you must promise to listen with an open mind and understand that it is much more complicated than I could possibly put into words.”
“Fine,” Stiles agreed, turning in his seat to face Talia. He hated that he was small enough to sit comfortably in the seat sideways.
“When I sent Peter to Mexico, it was because he and Olivia were having… problems. Faye was incredibly young, only a few months old, and Olivia was having trouble controlling her. I didn’t know, of course, that it was because of her siren side. Not even Peter knew. I thought that sending him away on official pack duty would make them both realize how badly they needed each other,” she began. Stiles opened his mouth to ask a question, but stopped when she raised her hand to quiet him.
“He called me every single morning to give a progress report, for ten long months. Not once did he mention that he was seeing someone down there. Not once did he tell me that he’d even met the Desert Wolf. Negotiations were slow but fine. The day he called to tell me that he was coming home, he sounded… off,” she continued. “He called me hours later, from this very town, to ask me to meet him. It was important, he said. He couldn’t say what was wrong over the phone. He didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be heard.
“When I arrived, he offered this little bundle of blankets to me with no explanation at all. The very first time I held her, I knew that she was special. He told me that her name was Malia, that she was his biological child. He told me who her mother was… that he’d had to save her when she tried to kill her. Apparently, she’d gotten pregnant on purpose. She’d heard that there was a ritual you could perform on the full moon; by killing a biological child and eating their heart, she could gain their strength. Peter hadn’t meant to have a child out there, but he couldn’t bear for her to be killed like that. He stole her away and drove her home.
“He told me he’d named her Malia, and that he couldn’t keep her. He didn’t want to bring her into the pack, because he knew that Olivia would kill her. I didn’t ask why he thought that. I should have. Perhaps after so long away, he’d figured out what she was. If that was true, though… I hate myself some days for making him come home with me. For dragging him back to her after he’d escaped. But that’s not the point.
“I didn’t know Henry and Evelyn very well, but I knew they’d been trying to have a child. My firm was trying to get them the right to adopt the child of a convicted felon, and we were very close to winning the case. One phone call was all it took to give Malia the home she deserved. Peter and I delivered her together, and I knew as soon as Evelyn held her that she would be loved. We even told them what she might become, and they were more than prepared to raise her. They did raise her,” Talia continued.
Stiles couldn’t take it any longer. “And Peter’s memories? Was it a punishment, or protection?” He had to know. Talia gave him an exasperated look.
“Neither,” she sighed. “I would never take memories as a punishment, and there are much more effective ways to offer protection. Peter asked me to take the memories away.”
“He did what?” Stiles asked, looking back over at the young Malia in disbelief. “But why?”
“He told me that very day, as we were driving away from the Tates, that if he was allowed to remember her, he would never be able to let her go. He’d go back every single day, watch her grow up… wallow in his mistakes. He begged me to take his memories away, even going so far as to make me promise to never give them back to him, no matter what. It was a part of his life that he didn’t want to know,” she replied.
“Doesn’t Malia have a right to know her family? To know where she came from?” Stiles demanded angrily.
“Malia has the right to a happy life,” Talia shot back. “And I’ve given her that. I’ve provided everything she could possibly need, and I check in with her often.”
“Why did you take her away from the Tates?” Stiles asked after a long stretch of silence. He hadn’t torn his eyes away from Malia.
“Her mother found her,” Talia said simply. He looked back at her in alarm. “I went to check on her the day after the fire, and I caught an unusual scent. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the scent belonged to the Desert Wolf. She was watching Malia, waiting to strike. So I…”
“You what?” Stiles pressed. Talia looked ashamed for the first time during the conversation.
“I went to the Tates and told them that someone dangerous was going to try to kill Malia, and that they were all in danger. I offered to place Malia into protective custody, and they agreed. Malia didn’t really understand what was happening- she was only eleven years old, barely. She went with me, but she was upset about it. I… I did what I thought was necessary. I took her through the woods, spreading her scent. Then I made her put on a necklace that Alan made specially for me to hide her scent from anyone who might be looking for her. Anyone,” she replied. “And once I’d gotten her here, to a safe home, I went back to where the trail ended, and…”
Stiles just waited this time, letting her pull herself back together instead of pushing her to continue. She seemed grateful for that.
“I found a young coyote not far from where the trail ended, and I used my claws to rip it’s throat out. It wasn’t hard to get her scent onto it. And I just… left it there. When I went back the next day, the heart was missing, and the Desert Wolf was gone. I’m just giving it a little more time, to make sure she doesn’t come back, before I return Malia to her rightful home,” she finished.
He needed a moment to process that. It was nothing at all that he’d been expecting when he’d started looking for Malia. He watched her in silence for a little longer, gathering his thoughts. “But she’s happy? She’s… she’s safe?”
“She is a very happy child,” Talia confirmed. “She’s got impeccable control over her shift, and she has a family who loves her more than anything else in this world. She is as safe as I can possibly keep her.”
“Good,” Stiles said softly. “Can we go home now?”
“Of course,” Talia agreed easily.
They drove in silence once more. Stiles didn’t speak up again until they crossed the town line into Beacon Hills. “You’re never going to tell Peter?”
“No,” Talia confirmed. “He didn’t want to know. I can’t imagine that will have changed in light of what Olivia has done. He wouldn’t want to interrupt her life, and he wouldn’t be able to help himself if he knew.”
“I… think I understand that,” Stiles admitted. “I felt like I had to find her… like I owed it to her, you know?”
“You’ve been through quite a bit with her, I’d imagine. If you knew her, she must have survived her mother. I can only imagine the hardships that poor child suffered through,” Talia admitted. Stiles nodded.
“Will you tell me when you bring her back? I won’t go looking for her again, I promise. I just want to know that she’s okay, when she makes it home,” he said quietly after a few more minutes.
“I promise,” Talia confirmed, smiling softly. “I’m glad to know that you’re looking out for her, as well.”
“She’s pack,” he admitted. “Even now, she’s my pack.”