Scott and Stiles simultaneously closed the car doors behind them as they exited the vehicle, leaving it at the entrance of the Beacon Hills preserve. They silently walked side by side for a while, each of them apparently busy in a mind labyrinth of his own.
"Did you talk to her?" Stiles was the first to disrupt their quietness.
"If you mean Allison, then no," Scott gave him the answer without a glance in his direction.
"What about Malia? you know, your actual current girlfriend," Stiles added shortly after.
Scott furrowed his eyebrows at Stiles before replying,"What about her?"
"Scott, your first love resurrects from the dead to save your ass, your girlfriend barely escapes death the same night that that happens, and you don't think there's anything you should talk to her about? And it doesn't help that it's Malia of all people," said Stiles in one breath.
"What is that supposed to mean? Malia of all people,"
"You can look at her from any angle you want, but... Compared to us, she's only been human for what now? Six years? At best? Not to mention she came back to not one but two, completely broken families after transitioning back from coyote to human form," Stiles continued.
Scott slowly but gradually came to understand the meaning of Stiles' words, and he could do nothing but agree, even if he didn't say it out loud at first. Allison Argent was his very first love, even though they were no longer together by the time of her untimely death, his feelings for her were anything but deniable. Malia had joined the pack only after the ordeal with the nogitsuné came to an end. Not to forget the fact that she'd spent nine years trapped in the body of a coyote, which didn't always come in handy when she ever needed to overcome her emotions, or control them for that matter, "I don't know, I guess I was too overwhelmed by the recent events, maybe she was too, I mean she didn't say a thing either, I just honestly thought there was nothing to be said,"
"We all are living a constantly overwhelming life, if you're waiting for a break to sort your personal affairs, well, I hope your patience is limitless, for your own sake," said Stiles.
"She doesn't have anything to worry about, at least not concerning this," Scott answered almost immediately.
"Does she? I mean, she sure experienced a wide range of emotions by now, but some are still foreign to her. You only got together with her once both of your exes were completely out of the picture, as sad as the circumstances made that a reality. I don't know what she felt when she saw you walk through those doors with Allison, but... If I can be absolutely sure of one thing, it's that silence isn't the way to go with Malia,"
They resumed their quiet walk after those words, Stiles made his point and Scott seemed to have gotten it. Until a different course of thoughts popped in the Alpha's mind, and he chose to not hold it back, "Speaking of silence, you didn't really contribute much during the reunion earlier today, when your turn to speak came,"
Scott watched Stiles closely after what he'd said to him. He was no mind reader but even he could tell that Stiles had hoped that moment would never come; the moment when someone would actually ask him for more details on what had happened to him, as he was stuck in his nightmares the previous night. He could tell, that the nogitsuné did a number on his friend yet again... And he, the true Alpha let it happen... Again. Scott knew there was no way for him to have done things differently, no way for him to have known what the future had for all of them. But it was no use trying to convince himself of that... All he could do, was accept that those poignant feelings of guilt came with his job.
"I saw my mom," Stiles said in a dry tone.
Scott didn't say anything, there was nothing for him to say to that.
Stiles walked a little more, then his expression softened a bit before he added, "The nogitsuné made me see my mother again. She was on the roof top, waiting for me to jump with her,"
Scott remained silent once more, afraid to cut his friends' thought process as he was in the middle of opening up. What could he possibly have said to him that would be of any help to him anyway? That he found the nogitsuné's methods cruel, perhaps? That it wasn't fair for the creature to use Stiles' mother against him? None of those things would come as news to his friend. But those were his own thoughts on the spot.
"I guess he thought it'd be funny for him to take me out that way... By making me take my own life...," said Stiles.
"I see... So, he used an illusion to manipulate you into doing his job for him," that was all Scott had managed to say.
"You know, I've been thinking, the nogitsuné used my nightmares against me, Jennifer Blake used her powers to try and kill Derek, but one piece in this puzzle doesn't fit for me," Stiles jumped ship, straight into a different topic from where he'd originally started.
"What piece?" Scott asked and waited patiently for the answer, if there was anybody he could always trust to think outside of the box, it was his best friend, Stiles.
"Peter said that him and Malia were trapped in some sort of loop, or an illusion. Sure, he said that they were ambushed by Kate and her Berserkers, but he also said that he'd hallucinated his sister Talia and her daughter Laura. Do you see where I am getting at?"
"Yeah, I... No, I actually can't see it," Scott thought for a moment that he understood what Stiles was hinting at. But eventually he realized he didn't have the slightest clue about it.
"It's Kate Argent! We know Kate Argent! She's a werejaguar, she's the bone woman, she can create and control Berserkers, but what else can she do?" Stiles spoke fast, waving his right hand around in the fashion he always did whenever he was deep into a serious analysis.
"That's it, to my knowledge at least," said Scott.
"Exactly! Jennifer was busy with Derek in the old distillery, which is situated at some distance outside of town, the nogitsuné was busy with me at the hospital, which... Is still quite far from where Peter and Malia were ambushed. So, what or who caused those hallucinations to help Kate?" Stiles had finally drawn a full picture of what he had in mind.
"There's a possibility one of them finished early with their own mission and went out of their way to help Kate," Scott suggested.
"Yeah, there's that possibility, but I wouldn't count on it to be our answer. If I remember correctly, everyone said that our enemies all retreated at the same time, around the time Lydia screamed. So, you wanna know what I think?" Stiles stopped talking for a second before continuing, "One of these two possibilities here: Either Kate was blessed with brand new powers... God forbid; or one of the other bastards went through a giant upgrade, and can now cast extremely wide range attacks, where the influence of their powers extends beyond the distances, we've known them to be capable of before,"
"Well, you wanna know what I think?"
Stiles stopped dead in his tracks, wondering why Scott's voice was coming from a distance behind him. Once he turned around, he saw that Scott had halted sometime before he did himself. The alpha seemed to be facing a specific way, too focused to think of anything else around him. Stiles walked slowly towards his friend; once near enough, he noticed that Scott's eyes were crimson red.
Then Scott spoke again, "I think that you're completely right about what you just said," he said, the astonishment remaining on his face.
Stiles finally followed Scott's gaze to understand what was with his sudden change in behavior and... His own eyes widened. He only remembered to blink when he felt his eyes sting.
"What the hell?" he managed to say, still incredulous at the sight of the nematon, surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of dead bodies stacked all around it.
"You're finally here, I was really starting to think we'd have the time to bury them all and maybe even give a eulogy for each and everyone of them," Deucalion's voice came to pull them both out of their trances.
Scott's lips moved, but only to say, "You gotta be kidding me...,"