Oblivion (A Stiles Stilinski/Teen Wolf Fanfiction) [3]

Epilogue

 "Do you think he'll ever be able to look at me again? The way he used to, I mean," Allison asked to Scott as they watched Stiles lay a fresh bouquet of flower in front of Emma's headstone.

 Scott sighed, not really having an answer for her. He felt a pang in his chest as he listened to Stiles' muffled sobs that only he would be able to hear from this distance. Stiles was holding something between his fingers, and Scott knew it was the crescent moon necklace Emma had practically thrown at Stiles her first day back at school after losing her memory. He wasn't surprised Stiles kept it.

 "He just needs time," he said.

 "Scott, it's been a month," said Allison.

 He sighed again. "I know,"

 Words couldn't express his joy when Allison approached him, her heart beating and blood pumping through her veins. He'd thought he lost her, his first love. Then, he knew something wasn't quite right by the way Allison forced her smile, by the dark shadows underneath her eyes.

 Scott had gotten back his first love, but as a result his best friend lost his. He doesn't know how he's supposed to react. He hates that he has to walk on eggshells around Stiles, careful not to say something about Allison that could set him off. He feels guilty, that he gets to love again and now Stiles has to be the one to cop with the loss of losing a piece of himself.

 "I didn't ask for any of this to happen," said Allison, a tight knot forming in her throat at the thought of the valiant sacrifice that was made on order to save her life. It's times like these she wishes Emma hadn't. She should have just stayed dead so Emma could be standing where she was always meant to be, next to Stiles.

 "It was Emma's choice," said Scott, taking a deep breath and trying to keep himself together. He hadn't realized how much Emma meant to him until she was gone. "You can't blame yourself,"

 "If I hadn't let my guard down - "

 "Allison," said Scott, breaking her off and taking her hands in his. "This isn't your fault."

 She doesn't believe him, but she nods her head none the less.

 Behind them, Sheriff Stilinski approaches his son, placing a firm hand onto his shoulder. Stiles lets out a muffled noise of desperation, trying to find the strength to speak. Talking doesn't feel the same to him, not without Emma there to listen.

 "Is this what it felt like?" Stiles asked, the tiniest of cracks in his voice. "When you lost Mom?"

 The Sheriff's heart twisted in a way he'd never felt before. He thought of his wife, the way he felt when she was no longer next to him in their bed. "Yeah, yeah it is,"

 "Does it get better?"

 Stiles looked up at his father from his place on the ground with the most pleading and painful look in his eyes. The Sheriff almost couldn't find it within himself to answer the question. It reminded him of the way he used to look at him right after Claudia's death, when he'd stopped crying long enough to ask why his mother had been taken away from him.

 "It just hurts less,"

 And as Stiles kneels there, with an unbearable ache in his chest, he recalls something Emma said to him on the anniversary of his mother's death. "I'm not sure which is worse, remembering or forgetting." He'd thought about it before, when he sat at Emma's bedside after her mind had been wiped of her memories, after he thought he lost her. It meant something to him then, and it had meant something when she's first said it. Now, as he remembers catching her limp body in his arms and tries not to forget the first time he saw her, he truly understands what she had meant.