Feeling the bright light creeping through the window attacking his eyes, Derek turned his head away trying to let them adjust. He could smell it, there was another person in the room with him but he was used to the smell. Smelling like antiseptic and lavender pillow spray.
He could faintly hear music playing, from the same room though. It was coming from headphones for sure. Sitting up, he looked around to find himself in the room of what he could only describe as a madman.
The foundations of it was gentle and beautiful, something that he thought his sister would have loved. Sage green walls that had a golden mirror placed on and a few photos. A wooden floor with a large white fluffy misshapen rug, book cases filled with literature all of which he knew he wouldn't understand. There were mirror balls dotted around allowing for small dots of light to be scattered around the room. There was a wooden rocking chair in the corner with large white pillows on, and inhabiting the said rocking chair was Jules.
With her back leaning against one of the arms and her legs swung over the other, her mouth ajar as her head was upside down in her sleep. One arm dropped to the floor and the other flung across her stomach. She was the one with the headphones on and a blanket that was half hanging from her.
The bed he was lying on was not the traditional one, with the mattress being laid upon a few wooden crates that she'd used to store all of her shoes and bags. The bedding mismatched sage green and cream sheets. Clothes dotted around, the mess being something of a teenager.
That was the normal bit.
The odd bit was the articles and pieces of paper that were all printed out and glued to the wall, all of medical cases she was studying and learning. Most of them outdated, she'd never bothered to take down the ones from the start of her internship and instead had just stuck the papers over previous ones. Post-its everywhere with notes of her thinking.
Groaning, he moved to get up a dull ache where his wound once was. Glancing down he found himself with bandages all around his torso with blood staining on them.
The second he had moved, Julie had bolted up from her own chair, "what? I'm awake?" She said quickly, looking around confused.
Spotting Derek sitting himself up, she immediately jumped out of her seat, "whoa, whoa, whoa, you should not be moving with that wound. I am surprised you're even alive, it went right through!" He tore the bandages off to reveal a normal body. Without marks or scars, just residue of blood. She stood staring at it her mouth open from being about to say another word.
"What?" He grit out, still groggy from the wound and sleep, "you staring at the lack of wound or my abs?"
"That's incredible," she whispered, all but jumping on the bed to investigate, "there was a- a hole. Like a giant freaking crater going through your back to the front...and like... it's just, it's gone. Derek it's gone," she said, looking back to his face the largest smile he'd ever seen on her own. "This is... this is amazing. This is beautiful, this is magnificent, this is a whole miracle!"
"Are you crying?" He asked, confused, his face pulled into that of strangeness. She looked at him confused pressing her hands to her cheeks before she laughed.
"I guess I am. Derek, this is a medical miracle. This is literally a description of god's work... wow... also you do really have good abs," she admitted subconsciously feeling them up under the pretence of inspecting the wound. "Also you're being blamed for what happened at the school and there's an arrest order out for you," she added on still feeling up his torso.
"What?!"
"Well..." she muttered, pulling her hand away as she realised the severity of what she'd said, "at least no one died."
______
"Beautiful Monday morning! Beacon Hills High School is back open after being closed Thursday and Friday. Police search continues for alleged killer Derek Hale-"
"I'm telling you, it was incredible!" Julie said, the large smile still on her face as she slammed her hand on the radio to silence it, "Joe, this dude had a wound from his back to his front. A whole pike through him, and now, well the wounds closed up entirely and normally. He's a normally functioning human... and the scarring, well," she droned on, editing the story to make it more palatable to people who weren't aware of the supernatural, "well, it's so well done you can barely see it."
"Where do you find these people?" Joe chuckled, as they walked down the hall with her. The pair going with the knowledge they had about twenty seconds left before they would take separate turns at the end of the hall. Other than breaks and the occasional collaborative case they rarely got to see each other.
"You should have seen it, Joe, it felt like a miracle. It felt like... oh god, it was so great! To see it healed so perfectly... man, I wish you could have seen it."
"Dr. Stilinski," a voice called out, and she looked over to see the male nurse from the care home side approaching with an envelope, "here's the results of the tests you asked for, thought I'd deliver them to you personally so I don't have you knocking on my desk again," he explained.
Joe looked at her confused as the nurse walked away, "you're not on any of their cases," he stated and she hummed.
"Patients family asked me to have tests run," she said, "don't worry, I specifically explained that I was an intern and therefore not licensed to give a consult. But he requested that only I see the results and explain them to him. It's for him, it's not for the hospital," she explained, opening the envelope as she did so.
She looked over the scans and the results, all of them making her frown, "looks perfectly healthy to me," Joe said, peering over her shoulder.
"No... that's not right...surely not... hey owen," she called out, chasing after him before he could leave and he stopped waiting for her to catch up. "You gotta explain some things to me."
______
Derek had tried reading through multiple books on Julie's shelves, being trapped and confined in her room. She had assured him that no one would dare enter, and so he chose to safely hide there. He couldn't read any of her books, he knew her password to her laptop - one, five, four, one- but he felt like that was too intrusive and there wasn't much he could do on a laptop except watch youtube or catch-up, none of which interested him.
So he found himself wondering around her room, looking around.
It was all pictures of her family, very few of friends except a few from her internship. He recognised one of the pictures as herself and of the man from the hospital she'd been speaking to when he went to go and visit them. The pair were hugging in scrubs and a lab coat, and he could see the excitement and innocence and happiness.
Most were of herself and Stiles, a few featuring their dad. Graduation photos, childhood photos, all of the normal stuff. One of senior prom when she was dressed up to the worlds standard of beauty. Not that he ever thought she didn't look like the most typical beautiful woman going, but he could tell she'd put a lot of effort in as many did for their last prom. Clutching to her dad's waist with her little brother's hand in the way of half of the photo not quite grasping how to take a good photo, yet.
But then there was one where she was sat on a hospital bed, her kid brother sat beside her and a woman sat up in the bed dressed in the hospital gown with all of the wires connected to her. They were all smiling, and he could tell the two women were related almost immediately. If it wasn't for the exposure of age he'd have thought they were twins.
"We are watching his family's house. Maybe he'll wind up there? Give me a second-" Stilinski's voice sounded from outside of the room, and Derek pulled himself away from the photos to focus on the conversation, "don't you have a test to get to?"
"What's going on? Did you find Derek yet?" Stiles asked.
"I'm working on it. You go take your test."
"All right, Dad, listen to me-"
"Go!"
Grabbing onto the stack of papers that had fallen onto the floor, Derek flicked through to see several acceptance letters for hospitals all across America.
"This is really important! You have to be careful tonight, okay? Especially tonight."
"Stiles, I'm always careful."
Some were for the best teaching hospitals that America could produce, UCLA medical centre, NYU Langone Hospitals, some of the biggest ones for neurology.
"Dad, you've never dealt with this kind of thing before, okay? At least, not like this..."
"I know. Which is why I brought in people who have," glancing away from the papers, Derek once more focused on the conversation, "state detective. Go take your test."
______
She checked every room in her house to ensure she was home alone before she entered her own room. Derek looked at her confused as she began to pull a dozen pieces of paper from her bag, some of them not paper at all. He didn't know much about a doctor's work, but he knew that she probably wasn't supposed to have them outside of the hospital.
"You would not believe what I found out today," she said as she kicked the door shut, "so I got all the test results back from your uncle," she added on showing all of them to him. To Derek, they were just numbers and letters and pictures, "he is the epitome of a healthy man. None of which matches his physical..."
"So you're saying?"
"I'm saying that it's in Peter's chart that he requested to come off the pain and sedation medication," she said showing it to him, "Owen said he had the confirmation of Nurse Jennifer, that she got verbal confirmation with the assumption that he didn't need them anymore."
Derek was still looking at her confused.
"You said he's not changed in six years? His brain has gone from showing signs of PTSD and many neurological defects to being perfect. As if it was designed only last week, and now he's giving verbal confirmation that he doesn't want any pain medication. He gave this confirmation a few months ago."
"I don't... I don't understand," Derek admitted.
"I'm saying that something very weird is going on, and you may want to question it with Jennifer," she admitted, "I only have access to written down information, I can't tell you what's really going on. He may have had lucid day and said all of it before falling back into the comatose state, I don't know." She explained as she passed him all of the information, "do you need me to take you through it...or?"
"Explain it to me," he demanded, and she climbed onto the bed beside him to explain everything he asked.
It was around half an hour later when her phone rang, Derek was still trying to process all of the information. He didn't understand, if he had spoken, why she hadn't contacted either him or his sister. Even if it was just for two minutes. Even if it was only one word.
It was progress, important progress, and now, now Peter was the only living family member he had left.
"Hello?" Jules asked, waiting patiently for Stiles to talk.
"Jules, I really need your help. Sedatives anything, please, Scott's... Scott's different this time, he's aggressive. He's on some sort of mission-"
Derek moved to grab onto the phone but she held out her hand to him moving the phone further away so that she could continue speaking, "alright, where about's are you? I'll drive to where you are-"
"He's heading to the preserve! We've gotta hurry up, dad and a team of deputies are there as well."
"We'll be right there."
"Wait, who's we-"
She cut him off ending the call as they both bolted from the bed.
"It's faster for me to run," Derek said, and she watched startled as he simply jumped out of the window.
"Oh...bye then," she muttered to herself before she grabbed onto her car keys and legged it out of the house.
______
"Stiles just tell me where you are," Julie urged on the phone, as she traipsed through the forest. The darkness was not making it any easier for her to find who she was looking for. In fact, she was only growing more tired and more annoyed at the mud and leaves that were clinging to the bottom of her shoe, "describe, retrace your steps-"
"I found...I found all the police," he said, and she huffed at his lack of useful response, "on the road, just outside where the river is...er... berkley street," he explained, and she nodded, "Jules, Julie I can't find dad. Dad's not here."
"What do you mean dad's not there?" She asked, as she picked up her pace to a jog. She wouldn't be able to run, she was never a runner, she thought that would only send her into cardiac arrest.
"I mean he isn't here, they're all here except him. I can't find him! Julie!"
"It's okay, i'm coming, I'm on the way. It's okay, it's gonna be okay, it's fine," she encouraged, although whether it was for her own benefit or Stiles was a different question.
It took her around five minutes to jog through, and as she got out of the forest she was greeted with flashing lights and barriers, police everywhere. Stiles had his hands on his head as he looked around.
"Dad? Dad? Has anyone seen my-- has anyone seen my dad?" Stiles called out, but all of them seemed to ignore him.
Crawling under the barrier, Julie ran over to her brother, taking his arms as she pulled him out of all of the people, "it's okay," she assured, "we'll find him."
"Dad?!" Stiles called out again, and Julie looked around but she herself couldn't find him.
"Stiles? Jules? What are you doing here?" The pair both turned around to see their very concerned and confused dad staring at them both.
Sighing in relief Stiles stumbled out of Julie's only embrace and threw his arms around his dad. Noah looked to his eldest child confused but she could only shake her head not knowing herself. She had been concerned, she'd always be concerned, but she had faith that he would have been fine. She believed there would be more chaos if someone had been injured.
Noticing Stiles gripping onto his father more tightly, Julie walked forward and threw her arms around both Stiles and her dad. Both of them trying to offer comfort to the sixteen-year old boy who in this moment looked just like the eight year old who needed all the hugs in the world after their mother passed.
"It's okay, everything's okay," Noah muttered.