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Laura wakes up gasping for breath on a hard surface. It's something solid with a lot of cracks, little pin-like things poking all over her back as she struggles on top of it.
"Mom?" She doesn't know what's wrong with her. Her mom would, though. She knows everything. Laura hadn't been surprised at all that she'd found her crying in that white room, in the space between worlds; she couldn't be with her all the time, but that was okay. Laura had been used to not having her around.
"Laura," someone speaks her name like a prayer, a whisper of awe. She recognizes that voice.
Her gut tells her she knows what's happened to her. But it's still a shock to her system—she is alive, she is alive again—when she tries to sit up and the person that helps her is Derek. Her baby brother.
He was so young when she'd left, but now he looks like he's been through hell. He's aged so much.
But he's not the only one to help her tilt her world on a different axis. There's a girl, too. She looks familiar in a way that hurts; Cora. It's Cora. She looks so much like mom.
"Cora." She didn't know that her baby sister was alive. How could she not know that?
Cora gives a small cry, a sob that's more like a giggle mixed in with a little bit of sadness. "Hey," she says, and Laura opens her arms. Someone clears his throat then, and Laura turns to see Derek looking away, a man by his side doing the same. "Here." Cora says, and helps her get dressed.
Laura is curious. Derek and Cora, they make sense, they're her family. Of course they would be here. (She thinks about Peter, but that's someone she doesn't want to think about, not right now). But this man, this man who reminds her of Derek's first girlfriend—brown hair, pale skin, moles—is not someone she knows.
But she can smell him. She's not an Alpha anymore, but she still has her sense of smell, and she can smell the ozone on the man. The scent of magic. He reeks of it. And so does Derek, and in a vastly huge quantity than Cora does.
Laura files that information away in her head. Derek has been through hell, but at least he hasn't been alone. That's good enough for her now.
When Derek and the man turn back, Laura opens her arms again, and this time she gets both of her siblings in her arms.
"We missed you." Derek tells her, voice choked up with tears.
"I'm so glad you're back, Lo," Cora agrees. But Laura doesn't know what to think.
There's always a price to pay for magic, and bringing back a soul is no small feat.
She lets her siblings go from her arms, but not by her side. She stares at the man with the tawny eyes, and asks with a deadly calm, "How am I alive?"
The man smiles. Looks at Derek, looks at Cora. Looks back at her. His eyes soften.
"Good things do happen, you know." He doesn't look stressed. His heartbeat is steady.
Laura isn't in the space between worlds right now. She's here, she's with her family, her pack, and this man has helped bring her back.
Laura takes a deep breath. Opens her arms. Smiles.
"Thank you, Derek's boyfriend."
Derek laughs like it's pulled out of him, and Cora says, "I told you! You and Stiles are so obvious," and the man—Stiles, evidently—grins until his mouth is almost splitting his face in two.
"I like you." He says, and Laura hugs him. Hugs Stiles.
Stiles and Derek and Cora. They're here, for her. Maybe she didn't fuck up as bad as she'd thought, if they love her still.