|| Wake Up Call
The hospital room containing patient 327 was nicely festive. A small christmas tree sat among old photographs on the window ledge and flowers from various people were spread around the room.
Patient 327, one with an impossible name to spell and even more to pronounce, was in a deep sleep. Drifting, you could say. With conciousness escaped, the shell of a boy who'd battled and befriended monsters was bruised and battered, but healing slowly.
A Christmas tune flicked on down the hall, faintly dripping into the room nearly void of sound. The only thing clearer was the humming and whirring of the machines around 327.
That, and a door shutting softly.
Jacy hesitantly approached, the screams she so typically heard calmed by the Santa Claus jingle. Her eyes should have gone to the boy in the hospital bed, but she couldn't look at him.
Stiles Stilinski; a hero, not a side kick
Jacy kept quiet, something she was good at. Her fingertips toyed with each other, her feet carrying her closer.
He'd done so much to Jacy in only a couple of weeks, and in truth, he'd never left this bed. He had never spoken a word nor opened his eyes, but his time with Jacy was so very real.
This town was a funny place. Funny, but so cruel.
Jacy drew the chair close to the side of Stiles' bed and softly sat down.
Not all batles are fought standing up, it seems.
Jacy studied Stiles like art; the bruise webbings on his body and how his eyelashes barely graced his cheeks.
He looked peaceful, but in the same way, he looked dead.
"Jordan said it's only a trigger." Jacy started feebily, taking Stiles' hand in her own rather carefully. "Something special that can do it to you." It was just Stiles she was talking to - the one battling death inside his body. "I guess by now I should have some clue to what yours is, but I don't. Hell, I didn't even know mine."
"So you were like me once."
Jacy jumped in her place, the voice startling her. She looked over her shoulder, finding a boy in plaid leaning on the back wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
Rather than being mad, Stiles only sounded interested. "The accident McCall talked about."
Jacy nodded lightly, "Two years ago."
"When you started seeing ghosts." He stayed where he was, well aware he could strongly feel her holding his hand across the room.
"In my family, a person has two triggers. One is how they get into their drifting state, and the other is how they get out of it." Jacy hadn't made a move to let go of the fragile hand. "You have to go through both to essentially unlock the power we harbor in our blood."
"What was your first trigger?" His hand, the near translucent one he had control over, felt warm.
"I was drowned - something I loved turned on me. State championships in the final relay." She smiled a little sadly, "My goggles froze over and seared into my skin. When I tried to surface and take them off, I was held underwater by a spirit. It kept pulling me down. It didn't let go until I stopped fighting and I died."
"Swimming. That's your sport." Stiles took the look she gave him and corrected himself. "Was your sport."
"Made captain freshman year." Jacy found herself looking at Stiles' hand in hers. "I, uh, lost it when I wasn't fit to swim. I never swam after that until Lydia's."
"Wait, you said you died." Stiles felt like a gate had been opened, revealing why Jacy herself never spoke much of her past. "Died, died?"
"Officially dead for seven minutes." Jacy didn't look at Stiles, "A teammate pulled me out, couldn't get off my goggles and I didn't respond to anything. By some miracle, I came back." With her free hand, she drew an oval around her eye with her finger. "You can still see where they had to surgically removed them. Took off some skin."
"How long did you drift for?"
"A month. Jordan hadn't had much drifter experience, but it was enough to wake me up." Jacy placed her other hand on top of patient 327, so she had both holding his. "And then my clairvoyancy kicked in and ill-prepared fifteen year old Jacy looked completely psychotic because she couldn't stand the screaming."
Stiles knew she'd been through a lot, but he didn't begin to think it was this much. "What woke you up?"
She laughed a little, "The sheer fact of how much Jordan loved me. My mom had been bullied by my dad to pull the plug since I was essentially braindead for a month." She closed her eyes for a moment; she'd never said this out loud to anyone. Not with this much detail. "Jordan was telling me how he couldn't do it and that he was sorry for not being able to wake me up. He said goodbye. He kissed my forehead and on his way out, I woke up."
Stiles was quiet for a moment before speaking again. "What's it like?"
She already knew what he was asking.
"What's what like?"
Stiles looked at his feet, biting the inside of his cheek. "Death, Jace. What's it like?"
Jacy swallowed, an emptiness shrouding her. "Like nothingnesss."
"Nothing?"
"Were you expecting golden gates?" Jacy wasn't harsh or patronizing, meerly thinking about her 15 year old self. "It's just blackness. Cold and lonely and...never ending. My few minutes in that void felt like centuries."
"Does it hurt?" he softly asked.
"Only a little." Jacy looked over to Stiles, "But you won't have to find out. Not for a while."
"Y'know, I thought I'd at least make it out of high school."
"What are you talking about?" Jacy still had comatose Stiles' hand in hers. "You will."
"Let's be real about this, Jacy. Even if this works, my life has changed drastically since Scott became a werewolf. I am bound to be put into yet another life threatening situation that may just take me out."
"Is that what this is? Just another situation?" Jacy had rose an eyebrow with a changed expression. "Stiles, if you don't think this will work, it won't and you'll be dead and I'll hate myself."
Stiles moved away from the wall finally, "That's another thing, Jace. Why do you care so much? Even before whatever the hell we are, you refused to let the possibility of my death. Why?"
"Would you rather I let you die? Just to give up on you?" Jacy looked estranged, "Is that what you want?"
"That's not what I'm saying. I - I just, I don't get it."
"Should I rephrase that for you, or," Jacy stood up, letting go of patient 327's hand. "or can you manage it yourself?"
"You, Jacy. I don't get you."
"Don't feel so bad about it. No one does," she sharply said. "I was just hoping you would. You were different than everyone, Stiles."
"I am different, I just don't know why you care so much about me! It doesn't make sense. You didn't know me but you've spent nearly a month trying to fix me."
"Maybe I didn't want you to go through the same thing I did! After my accident and then Emelia, I wanted to keep you from that. It sucks, Stiles. It doesn't matter if you're the drifter or the clairvoyant, it's the worst possible thing and I was just trying to make it better or even quicker for you." She was flustered as she spoke. "So, no, I didn't know you, but I knew what situation you were in. It was the same shitty situation I had been in and I didn't want you to suffer."
The silenced, Jacy slowly closing her mouth as she only then seemed to realise she'd gone off. She hadn't meant to.
"Jacy,"
Jacy shut her eyes, "I, just, just forget what I said. I didn't mean to say that out-"
"Loud?" Stiles finished for her. "Yeah, I've noticed that you don't often say what's on your mind."
"Yeah, well you seem to be the only one who can get me to really say anything at all." Jacy hated fighting with him.
"Why is that?"
Jacy watched Stiles wordlessly, only able to shrug. "I don't know."
"You don't?" Stiles sounded unconvinced as he took a step forward. "Nothing comes to mind? Absolutely nothing?"
Jacy hesitated before shrugging. "Should there be?"
"I don't know." Stiles wasn't even sure what he was doing. "Should there be?"
"Unless you count the opposite outcome of what I expected when you yelled at me in the lunch room and I ran away from you."
He raised an eyebrow, "What was the outcome you expected?"
"That either Jordan would get you or I'd just avoid you and leave when I felt too guily." Jacy glanced to her feet. "I ran because I was too scared I couldn't help you."
"What made you change your mind?"
"I owed it to you," she said. "You were a teenager stuck in a situation that you couldn't help."
Stiles smiled, "Thank God for that."
Jacy had to look up to meet his eyes, Stiles so close that he beat her well in height.
He couldn't touch her so Jacy wasn't sure what he was thinking.
"And by the way, this month hasn't been me suffering because I got to spend it with you." Stiles reached out, cupping Jacy's face and kissing her.
Jacy's eyes widened before slowly shutting, able to feel him. She could touch him like she could touch ghosts, placing her hand on his shoulder and pressing her lips back against his.
A heavy wind rushed past the room, the beeps of Stiles' monitor coming in clear.
Jacy pulled away from Stiles, her breath catching as she saw.
Stiles was dissolving, the image of him being swept away into oblivion.
"No," Jacy whispered. "No, no, no this can't happen."
Behind her, there was a mechanical fluxuation.
The constant beeps had gone to only one that seemed to drag on forever.
Jacy covered her mouth, tears falling from her eyes.
The door busted open, both Nurse McCall and Doctor Dane rushing in with wide eyes.
"Get her out of here!" Olivia ordered, more men and women in scrubs bustling in.
Melissa grabbed Jacy by the shoulders, pulling her out into the hall. She wrapped the teen in her arms, squeezing her own eyes shut, tears leaking down her cheeks.
Jacy's screamed through her tears into Melissa's shoulder, drawing looks from bystanders in the corridor.
There was another scream that was blood curdling, but it wasn't Jacy's.
It was Lydia's.
Melissa stroked Jacy's hair, crying silently. She hushed her through a strangled voice, trying to calm her.
"I love him," Jacy said desperately, clinging on to Nurse McCall. "I love him."
"I know." Melissa softly said, her eyes shut. "He knows."
But Jacy didn't say anything more because if Stiles did know she loved him, he would've woken up.
Instead, he didn't.
Stiles Stilinski was dead.