Chapter 22 - Trauma in 4K

AUTHOR'S NOTES: TW FOR DOMESTIC ABUSE AND SEXUAL ABUSE TO A CHILD, MOSTLY IMPLIED. ALSO, GRAPHIC PANIC ATTACK. BE SAFE WHILE READING, YOU COULD SKIP THIS CHALTER WITHOUT MISSING MUCH, OR ONLY READ THE LAST TWO SECTIONS IF THATS HEALTHIER FOR YOU. I promise as the author, I totally understand. This chapter is the darkest one I've written for this fic by far, even if it's all implied rather then explicit.

It's been a while, but not long enough for me to feel bad considering all the fics I update. Lol.

Feel free to check out the rest of the series if you want to read about the MC's interdementional cycle of reincarnation, but all installments can be read separately.

As always, y'all be killing it with the support, particularly comments, which are my favorite fuel for writting. You guys are the best. Seriously. 💙

So, without further ado, I give you the next chapter. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!

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Breakfast is over quickly and Iggy is left in Calista's capable hands as the only adult around and the only person with actual childcare experience, while Stiles, Derek, and I head to have our talk in the woods. Everyone else will be heading home for a bit, seemingly satisfied that I'm fine after my nap, but they'll be back to hear it all after the Alpha and Emissary are filled in.

"We can do this later. You only woke up this morning-" Derek starts.

"We can't. I-I can't. I never wanted to keep it hidden in the first place and the only reason I did is because your mental state is going to take such a massive beating that we couldn't risk it before the Ascendance," I tell him grimly. I haven't bothered to tone down the catastrophizing since, let's be honest, it really couldn't get any worse. "Let's get this over with before I chicken out and run off to live in the woods with Suhel."

"It's… really that bad?" Derek asks warily, and I can feel his inner wolf begin to shift anxiously beneath his skin.

I don't respond.

We make it to a clearing not far from my house and I turn to them, taking a deep breath, ignoring the way my hands are shaking from stress. "First, I want to clarify that this is going to suck massively, but that we can deal with it. I, most likely, will See the threat coming before it does… as long as I'm not knocked out. And this time, we will handle that shit." Both boys nod hesitantly. "Firstly, Peter is about to be alive again."

"…What." I cringe, not having heard that utterly cold and emotionless tone from the wolf in a hot minute.

"Crazywolf did a ritual that would force a certain banshee marked by his bite to revive him against her will by slowly driving her mad," I tell them bluntly, pacing to burn off some of my anxious energy. "In order to keep Lydia mentally safe, I'll speed along the ritual and help bring him back myself."

Derek takes a loud agressive breath, but remains silent, fists clenched and eyes shut. Stiles wanders closer to me, both to give Derek space and to comfort me. "Can't we just… stop it?"

I wince. 'Maybe, but I won't."

"Explain," Derek says, voice nearly a snarl.

I wring my hands, pacing harder. "I- Look, I know Peter's done some awful, awful shut. I got the bite scars on my side to prove it. I know… Laura…" Derek growls, but I can't stop now when I'm already balls deep and my words start to rush together in my nervousness. "But, he was literally insane at the time. I could feel it, like every part of him was warring against itself. I know you saw him smiling as he hurried us and terrified our pack, but I could feel his real emotions. He was angry, yes, but he… he was also devastated and grief ridden and guilty and lonely and in so much pain-"

I hate this, this impossible situation I'm forcing him to face, but while Peter needed to die, far too gone to be helped, this rebirth ritual could be his second chance. The thrumming in my veins, the magic of the Guardian in my chest, is screaming at me that Peter had not deserved his fate and that it is my responsibility to right this wrong, to fix the balance, to remember that the Hales never would have died had the nematon been well and had a Guardian-

"Stop," Derek barks gruffly, and my teeth click tightly together as I freeze in place. He rubs his hands over his head harshly, turning to do his own pacing. "You're saying he's innocent."

"No, I'm saying he's a victim. I- can he really be held accountable for everything he did?" I almost plead. 

"No, probably not," Derek agrees and he sounds so defeated and tired that I have to snap my packbonds shut to keep the guilt from overflowing into them. When Stiles grabs my hand, I relent and open my bond to the mage, if only a crack, a bronze reassurance in my soul. Derek continues, strained. "I can't just forgive him, Layla, even if it was my fault this all started-"

"No," I interrupt sharply, Stiles silent next to me. "It's not your fault and I'm not asking you to forgive anyone, that's your choice."

"Fuck!" Derek snarls abruptly, whirling to slam his fist into a tree, causing it to explode into wood chips and splinters in a fit of temper I've never witnessed from him before, his wolf raging as he beta shifts. I feel my blood run cold. "FUCK!"

I flinch, stepping back a bit and pulling Stiles with me. Somehow, I can look a murderous Peter right in the eye, I can go toe to toe with that bitch, Kate, without blinking, but the sight of Derek's fury is deeply unsettling and leaves me cowering. Then again, I'd always been far too vulnerable to the people I care about. Logically, I know he isn't entirely angry at me, but I also know that he isn't happy I am boxing him into a corner like this, either, and it is about to get a whole lot worse. 

"Derek," Stiles says warningly, speaking up for the first time in a while, conflict written all over his face, hand tight on mine.

Derek's ragged breathing is harsh in my ears even though he's far enough away that I can't see his face clearly. "What else? What else is there that could be worse than this?" I hesitate, feeling my stomach rapidly start to sink, panic beginning to gnaw at me. Derek hisses, "Layla, just spit it out!"

"Peter's claws turned Kate and she isn't dead!" I blurt.

There is a moment of perfect silence. Then, Stiles wheezes and Derek is roaring, absolutely losing it, his own packbond blasting open with ragefeardesperationhate and I hunch under the force of feeling his emotions from both the bond and my empathy. There is a cracking, shattering noise as the alpha rips an entire tree up by the roots and hurls it past Stiles and I in an explosion of wood bits. He's howling and screaming something, Stiles pushing me back as he begins to yell as well, but I can't hear it past the overflow of emotions around me.

My knees give out as panic starts to take over, our other packbonds starting to ring with their own confused worry in response to Derek's emotions without knowing what's causing such a reaction in the alpha. In my haste to grip my flower crown tighter, to stop the sudden surplus and amplification shredding my composure, I knock it completely off my head and my empathy goes off the rails, the world going white. My breath rattles out of me harshly, the sensory overload getting exponentially worse as my sensitivity to every emotion around heightens 10 fold.

I stagger, gripping my head as I cling to the last bit of awareness I have. He's just yelling, damnit, Layla, you're not a child- 

yElLiNg? cHiLd?

My own thoughts become my downfall as my sight vanishes and I'm launched head first into a vision. Not just any vision, no. Rather than a future I can handle, this is much worse. This is the past.

My past.

XXXXXXXXXX

I recognize where I am immediately and it sends panic through my veins. No, nonono, I don't want to be here. I don't want to See this-

"Honey, can you go check on Layla in the bath? She's been in there a while," my mother calls out, her voice warm and gentle like it usually is in my memories.

"Of course I can," Another equally warm voice responds, one I had almost forgotten the sound of if it weren't for its infrequent appearances to my nightmares. "After all, she's my daughter now, too."

I feel myself cowering as He comes around the corner, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, looking as painfully unassuming as anyone you might see on the street. Who could have guessed a monster lurked under his skin? Not my mother, and certainly not I.

He walks to the cracked bathroom door where I can hear childish humming from inside, stepping inside easily and as the vision starts to draw me forward, I snap out of my frozen shock and begin to fight with every bit of strength I have in me because this, this right here, remains one of the worst memories of my life, a memory that I've worked for years to put behind me, one that has become faded and blurred and I can't, CAN'T, deal with an HD refresher. I don't want to know all the little things I never noticed. I don't want to know what was nightmare and what was real. I don't want to remember!

I cannot experience this moment again.

"Hey, sweetheart, your mom wanted me to check on you," he says, voice filled with fondness and I feel myself dry heave, stomachs turning violently.

"I'm okay! Just playing! Thank you for the bath toys, Daddy," a little voice chirps. My little voice.

Daddy. I hadn't yet lost my real dad, my Papa, but that's what my mother told me to call him.

I called him Daddy and he still-

I keep getting pulled closer and closer to the door and I start screaming as I begin yanking on my magic desperately, feeling a vague pulse from my bond with Suhel, but without my crown, I can't hear him here. But, maybe, maybe he can still help.

"Hey, Layla-"

No.

"-do you want-"

No!

"- tO hAVe SomE FuN?"

NONONONONONO-

I shriek as I put all my strength into one desperate tug just as I'm inches away from seeing through the door, and once more I find myself tumbling through the dark void. But, I'm not safe in reality yet, no. Now, I'm just in a different nightmare. 

XXXXXXXXXX 

We are in the kitchen, my mother standing in front of me, shielding me from Him, the monster who always sat on top of my bed rather than hiding beneath it, and I can hear the yelling ringing in my ears. This is another faded memory I'd nearly forgotten.

"-ow could you do that?" My mother's voice is shrill in horror.p, her hands clamped so tightly on mine it hurt, even though they were shaking. I never noticed how much they shook back then.

He didn't even try to deny it. Instead he just carelessly shoves my mother aside, sending her to the floor, grabbing Little Layla by the arm who, sickeningly, looks a lot like Sunya at that age. He grips it tightly, lifting it until my child form can hardly touch the floor with her toes, and shakes roughly.

"See what you've done, Layla?" I flinch at the words, reaching for Suhel's bond again, reaching for all of my packbonds this time, and preparing to pull again, this time, back to the real world. "You could have just said you didn't want to play anymore."

Bile burns my throat as I take one last look at Him, calm if a bit irritated even as Little Me starts to cry from the pain. He speaks like this was my fault. Like I'd overreacted by "tattling" to my mum. Like I'd had a choice. I take a final look at my mother, noting the bruises on her face, her skin tear streaked as she goes to pull me away, and I can see the lost, pained look in her eyes.

And then I yank on my bonds and magic like my sanity depends on it. Because it does.

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I gasp into the dark, choking on the air in my lungs. I feel hands on me and I scream, clawing at them with short finger nails as my skin crawls. Don'ttouchmedon'ttouchmedon'ttouchme-

I scramble away, only my shaky breathing and the thumping of my heart audible. My back hits the rough bark of a tree trunk, and the burning scrape of it on my skin brings me back to reality a bit more. Someone's calling out to me, stress clear in their voices. I know them. The voices… they won't hurt me, but when a hand brushes my arm, I still shriek, something between terror and rage. "DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!"

Silence reigns as I curl up, my fingers tangling into the roots of my hair and pulling harshly there, finding myself gagging violently, but soon a gentle voice meets my ears and I whimper despite the fact that I love that voice because I just want the noise to stop. "Okay, Layla. Okay, Rohi. No one's gonna touch you. Can I give you the flower crown?"

Stiles.

I nod weakly, reaching out a hand, twitching when the flowers reach my skin, but relishing the instant relief the contact immediately brings, the pain in my head from the backlash of my powers easing. I press the crown to my scalp, feeling thorns that weren't there earlier prick me sharply, drawing blood. Suhel's presence is loud, comforting, but mercifully silent.

I heave another weak sob, curling tighter, as Derek's low voice brushes my ears. "Layla-"

"Go away. Just go away. I want to be alone," I wheeze out, trying to slow my gasping lungs and withstand the violent rebellion of my stomach in peace. I need silence, no more voices.

"Layla-" Derek tries again, concern and desperation leaking out.

"GO AWAY! FUCKING-" I gasp raggedly, catching myself. I'm fucking furious, both at having lost all semblance of control and at having had to relive that. But, that didn't mean I could take it out on them, something I know damn well even half out of my mind. "S-Sorry. Just- I-I need to be alone. Can you please just leave me alone?"

I tug harder on my hair, fighting back a wail as my voice becomes pleading.

"We can't just-"

"Go. Nothing can harm her in my domain. Go, Alpha and Emissary." Suhel's echoing voice calls out somewhere above me as I can feel his form manifesting.

"I- okay. Do you want me to start a bath for you?" Stiles asks as he and Derek rise and start moving away.

A… bath? I begin to make an awful noise that I'm sure sounds like it belongs in the deepest part of hell. Ordinarily, I love a good bath after a stressful day. Hell, I bathed with Derek and Iggy behind the curtain just this fucking morning, but after that particular memory, the thought of one makes me want to peel my own skin off.

"No bath. Leave," Suhel answers for me, voice harder than steel and so unlike his usual self.

And without another word the two leave me in the forest. Suhel, thankfully, doesn't stick around either, his presence receding but still there in the back of my mind, a muted reminder that, for better or worse, I'm never alone. I check my packbonds to find them all blown wide open and panicked, and I slam them shut not giving a damn the chaos it will cause. And now, finally as alone as I'm going to get, I weep.

I weep like I'm being torn apart, heavy, body shaking sobs that are accompanied by loud wails. I weep like a child, uncaring if any can hear or see as snot and tears drench my face. I weep like the world is shattering and there's no tomorrow. It took a lot, but I'd finally hit my breaking point. I held it together through bites, attacks, alphas, magic, hunters, the weight of a crown falling on to my head, and even my mom deciding to get the milk and never fucking come back when I needed her. But this had been too fucking much. Even a Guardian couldn't be expected to have handled this without batting an eye, right?

"You are not weak, dear one. Even now, you are strong." Suhel's whisper rides the wind and I shudder.

As my sight returns, I can see blazing silver light and lightning sparking violently off my skin, and as the sun slowly treks across the sky peeking through the dense forest canopy, the only evidence of time passing, I focus on getting my limbs to stop trembling and my magic to recede once more. Eventually, my tears slow, and breathing comes easier, and I wipe at my face with my shirt, noting it is disgusting already since I violently threw up at some point. Finally, night has fallen, and it soothes me, the coolness of it kind my itching skin.

I shakily climb to my feet, bones creaking from hours of disuse. It's dark around me, but my transformation is still somewhat active, causing silver light to resonate around me, lighting my surroundings and bouncing off the trees. 

It takes me a while to feel it, but a wave of peace and protection brushes my senses. I shiver, turning to my right, and from the trees, a lone Pegasus appears, the massive, softly glowing creature slowly trotting closer. Some of my aches and pains disappear, and my magic calms more, leaving me not feeling quite so raw, the presence of such sheer goodness as a Pegasus a balm to all my frayed nerves. As it sidles up, one giant, feathery wing draping around me, I lean into its side, a few more tears dropping down my face. Myvoice comes out raspy and stuttering. "Could you please take me to some water? I-  I need to wash."

The gentle creature leans down, allowing me the complete honor of riding him, but for a second, all I can think is that I don't want anything touching me between my legs. Then, I realize how fucking stupid that thought is and have to resist the urge to yank on my own hair in a burst of agitation. Gingerly, I climb on, feeling the stallion's aura steady me more with contact.

Get it together, I growl to myself. I hadn't even been this bad off when I was younger and first going through this. Maybe it's because I can now actually understand what happened to me, but somehow this is so much worse. Years of working my shit out all up in fucking flames over a random vision triggered. Retraumatization, I'd fucking underestimated the potency of that shit.

The lovely Pegasus brings me to a little stream and I strip to my underwear, and slip beneath clear water, letting the coolness soothe me as I wash off grossness and rub at my skin until it hurts, hoping to vanish the feeling of phantom hands.

It only kind of works.

XXXXXDEREKXXXXX

"If she isn't back soon, we have to go find her."

"We can't," Stiles murmurs. 

"We have to," I choke out.

Stiles' face is still that unnatural gray color it turned when Layla had started screaming. One moment the alpha was roaring our fury out, pissed that a threat to our pack had escaped, my fear and anger clouding my mind and weakening my control at the thought of Kate coming back for us, because she would. There was no question about that. This life with people who actually need and love me, something I never dreamed would ever happen again, I don't think I can handle losing it, and She will try to burn it to the ground.

Then Layla's packbond was blasting wide open with a level of terror I don't think I've ever felt from her even when we were one step from death and running for our lives. It was enough to cut through the rage, alpha instincts now demanding  that my packmate, a potential mate no less, needed help. The scream that Layla let out in that moment and the minutes after, ones that felt like an eternity, had me lunging for her, expecting a threat.

But, there she was, glowing with magic, silver eyes wide and unseeing as she let out a noise so chilling that it had me staggering and fighting a full shift. Her face was twisted in a look I'd never seen on it, tears streaming down her face as she mumbled incoherently, pleading with things we couldn't see. And then when she snapped out I'd it p, rather than reaching for us like normal, she recoiled. She was hurting herself just to get away.

The sight was so disturbing I had to fight bile back.

"It's not your fault."

I laugh dully. "Of course it is. It was my freak out-"

"You reacted normally to some seriously fucked up shit. The fact that it unintentionally triggered her… It is what it is. No one's fault," he mutters and I don't think I've ever heard him so emotionless.

"She was scared. She's never fucking scared and she was scared of me," I bury my face in my hands. We'd been waiting on the porch steps for hours and she is still out there, unbelievably upset and terrified and alone because she couldn't even bare my fucking presence.

"No, she wasn't." Stiles bites out and I startle at the first hint of anything that isn't sheer emptiness. "It wasn't you she was scared of, it was her visions."

I blink. "What?" I hadn't really registered the fact that she was having a vision rather than a panic attack. "Her visions? You mean whatever she saw…" He doesn't reply. "Stiles?"

"I've only seen her act anything like that, rejecting touch, once or twice and it was because of her own past," he answers grimly.

"You think…'' My eyes go wide as I remember the day I told Layla about Kate and what she hinted at to me in return.

Caramel eyes narrow sharply on me. "You know? She told you?"

"She implied, when I told her about Kate," I grunt darkly, and Stiles shuts his eyes, face pinching in pain briefly.

We sit in silence until I catch a scent on the wind, chocolate and vomit and mint and pain and flowers and fear and ozone and tears and a million other things that were both right and wrong on Layla. I feeeze as Layla comes out of the woods, staggering and soaking wet, her clothes muddy. I nudge Stiles who stills as well.

She walks up, arms curled tightly around herself. Then she stares, mouth opening and closing a few times as she tries to find words to speak. Her eyes are puffy and red, and even a bit unfocused. The whole picture makes my heart ache.

"Sorry," she murmurs. "I- Sorry."

I want to cry. "No. Don't. There is nothing to feel sorry about. It's my fau-"

"Please stop,"she breathes, eyes shutting, and I shut the hell up. Then, she sighs out heavily, shuffling closer and bending to kiss Stiles' head briefly. Then, shockingly, she does the same to me and I wonder if her shaking is because she's forcing herself for our sake. She very deliberately doesn't touch us in any other way, her arms pulled tight to her chest, and steps uneven, but it still gives me a little hope that maybe she doesn't completely despise me.

"Not your fault," she murmurs, kissing my head once more and this time I really can't stop the tears but she doesn't seem to see them, thankfully. "…Are you still angry?"

"No," I reply honestly, the wolf insides whimpering. That emotion died a spectacular, painful death. I'm not even surprised that she somehow still gives a shit even in this state. That's just who Layla is.

She nods, and though her packbond is still shut, I think that does give her some relief, small as it might be. "The others-"

"Know about Kate and Peter. We told them to give you space. Do you want everyone out of the house?" Stiles asks softly.

Her gaze is distant. "No, I'm just going to spend some alone time in my room."

Layla heads upstairs to her room. 

And she doesn't leave it for the next three days.

XXXXXLAYLAXXXXX

It took three days. Three days of fighting to reclaim who I am. Three days of crying and struggling, but I managed to bully myself into a semblance of normalcy.

I even managed to bathe, even if it wasn't fucking pleasant. But I fucking refuse to let that bastard's memory take something I enjoy from me. Thankfully, bathing doesn't seem to have become a full blown trigger, but forcing myself into the bath repeatedly was definitely not healthy. I hadn't had any more panic attacks, and only one nightmare, and the thought of someone touching me doesn't want to make me get a new epidermis. This is… progress? Right?

More importantly, I woke up this morning and wanted to see my pack. So, my new trauma is getting stuffed right into the back of my head with the older stuff. Yay.

I stare at the door, and after hyping myself up for ten minutes, I pull it open and head down to the kitchen to make breakfast. And then, I crack my bonds, just a bit. Mel is the only one awake, but she comes hurrying into the kitchen Iggy in her arms the minute she feels me. "Layla."

I breathe out. Somehow, seeing her wasn't as stressful as I thought. Rather, it actually made me feel better. "Hey. Can I have a hug?"

"Always," she tells me softly, and I carefully shuffle over to her one extended arm. She lets me take my time, staying still as I lean into her, and her familiar lavender and raspberry scent has me relaxing even more. It doesn't even bother me when she curls her arm around me, Iggy still in her other one, the baby's hand going to clench a chunk of my hair.

"Thanks Mama," I whisper, before seating myself and stealing Iggy from her. If hugging Mel was good, cuddling the baby werebear is absolutely medicine for my soul.

Things get easier after that since Iggy has the makings of a wonderful emotional support sibling. Feenie's cheerful presence makes me smile. I don't have to fight myself to pat Isaac's head or squeeze Sunny tightly. When Derek and Stiles creep in I fold them both into bone breaking hugs, and it soothes the ache in my chest.

Guess I will be okay after all.

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AN PLEASE READ!; How was it? Grim right? Sorry for hurting your soul, guys, but it's about time we learned about Layla's past because it does ultimately affect her character and why she was chosen as a Guardian. One of the themes that does crop up in my writting is violence against women and children, and I want to be clear about something; I write it because it's fucking real, and I think this kind of representation is important as someone who has both experienced it and known many who have. I don't write it for shock value, it's why it's mostly implied, but if anything, I'm projecting and y'all will have to understand that, in the end, I write for myself, to get thoughts and feelings organized and even a bit as a form of therapy. I sopose it says something when this was one of the easiest chapters I've ever written because the words came so quickly, even if it was emotionally draining. Actually, I think I started writing this work, and then the rest of the series because I was horrified how trauma was addressed and how much Kate's assault of Derek and Isaac's situation was glossed over or only brought up for shock vale and never really properly worked through. These little shits need therapy and a proper support group. And hugs. All the hugs. Anywho, as always, thx for reading and let me know what you think.