SONGS OF THE CHAPTER: Misery by The Maine and I Gave You All by Mumford and Sons. (Also, I pretty much obliterated my heart in the beginning of this chapter. I'm convinced I don't have a soul left inside of me after what I did to myself.)

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FIFTY EIGHT;

A REUNITED PLAY

Sage had not moved from her bed. It had reached the point where the walls to her large room were starting to grow smaller, building a cage around her that she couldn't help but appreciate. The closure was comforting, in some type of way that she wasn't sure she could properly explain to someone that had never felt the same containment. They were there, consistent even when the small amount of light shined through her window and slowly died out again twelve hours later. The headphones that she had attached to her ears were the only comfort she had to drown out her thoughts, unaware of how long she had repeated a single song before she knew all the lyrics and burning drum beats that were firing out in her ears on full volume. She didn't know how long she had just sat there, her legs crossed and back against her headboard as she stared at the pale wall directly in front of her, aligned with dozens of pictures that she had taken ever since she came to Beacon Hills last year.

A constant repetition had fled through the barriers of her mind without caution: Stiles was missing again. He was missing, and she could not continue struggling with the same consistent hell of shoving everything away until she found him again. The first time they found Stiles, the Nogitsune had successfully killed two people and sent Isaac into the hospital. The second time, the Nogitsune had planted an arrow directly into the chest of Coach Finstock, as well as placing a bomb in the Sheriff's station and managing to kill over seven deputies. She could not bother to acknowledge that, the same night, the Nogitsune had twisted an Oni's sword into Stiles' best friend and closed the airways of his ex-girlfriend. A disappearance of Stiles and the re-occurrence of the Nogitsune would not come without a cost. Sage's biggest fear was what that cost would do to her and her friends.

It had been a day, or that was as far as she could tell. She might have been sitting in her bedroom for an entire week and not even notice. She knew that she had to eventually move, whether it be to pick up Derek from the Sheriff's station or to just eat. However, no matter how much motivation she might have assumed having, none of it worked enough for her to actually move her limbs. After Sheriff Stilinski had come to Eichen House, speaking in harsh words to Brunski and Morrell about the lack of authority they had by not contacting him, he had successfully gotten Sage out of the institution a day and a half early. Not that it would have made a difference at that point, the teenage girl having honestly questioned from the moment she woke up with Malia pulling restraints off of her that Eichen House might have been the best place for her.

Waking up in the basement had been the hardest part. It wasn't the intolerable fear that immediately struck within her chest the moment she could not move her arms, or the aching feeling in her head that had her believing someone had ran over her, but the way she noticed that there were only three bodies left in the dark room. The one thing that she had persistently tried to stop had happened, and the easy tears in the restraints across from her in that basement supplied them with the minimal amount of answers they were searching for. Stiles was gone; and, he wasn't just gone from her life or gone from Eichen House. His ability to think, his ability to justify the Nogitsune's actions, his capability to stop any of the monstrosities that the Nogitsune was planning, all of that had been taken away along with his will to fight. Sage, suddenly crippled with deprivation of her words, had been the only one there to tell Sheriff Stilinski what happened to his son. She did not know who walked out of the doors that day hurting more.

Just as the song she was listening to set up to repeat again, the door to her bedroom had opened. Unsurprisingly, Sage didn't even flinch. Scott and Isaac had both already taken to checking up on her the moment that she got home, Lydia sending her a mass of text messages and calls that interfered with the music until she was silencing her notifications all together. She had failed to entertain them with a conversation, knowing that the crowd was already heavy and she would do nothing but bring it further down. Her eyes did travel to see who was walking in, though. At the state she was in, it could have been anyone. She wouldn't have even been surprised if Scott had decided on calling Deaton to talk to her, but the person that walked through the door happened to be someone Sage knew could break the fugue state she was caught up in.

A hum fell from the back of the teenage girl's throat as she slowly walked over. "So, you're alive."

Allison didn't say anything else as she finished the final steps from the door to Sage's bed, wasting no second pulling the blonde's cover of protection back and pushing herself into the comforter herself. The brunette didn't comment on the fact that her best friend looked horrible, all of her hair bundled helplessly in some mixture of a bun and a ponytail, makeup not something Sage had cared enough to put on in the past twenty hours. There was no acknowledgement of the bruise on her jaw that was slowly turning from a deep shade of purple to a bitter mixture of yellow and blue. Allison frowned deeply before she grabbed a hold of the headphone that Sage had in her right ear, pulling it out and placing it in her left ear; and, after that, the former hunter just pulled the covers back up and sat in the same stature that the girl next to her did.

It was when a Breaking Benjamin song came on that Sage finally decided she wanted to know why Allison was staying, and why she hadn't gotten the message like everyone else that the last thing she needed was something to hover around her. "What are you doing?"

"Listening to music," Allison replied casually, not missing a beat as she turned to face Sage as well. The blonde's face had quickly dropped even further at the obvious remark her friend made, knowing very well that her friend was purposely avoiding the real question. The dimple in the side of Allison's cheek went out, this time from how hard she was curling her lips in thought. "Do you remember how I was when my mom died? How... how nothing else mattered besides getting revenge for what happened to her?"

Sage remembered. She remembered it very well. That was the seven and a half days were the blonde had to make the decision between giving her friend space or pressuring her into talk about how she was feeling. It was the week that her best friend decided she wanted to set out on a war path against Derek, and the week that Allison had slowly lost a part of herself because Gerard Argent manipulated her with the coercion that he branded into Chris and Kate. It was when she had to face the fact that the distance between herself and Allison the moment the brunette went to France had been a good thing. It was when Sage and Allison had slowly drifted, their friendship hanging between a thin sheet of questions on how they were going to rekindle the things that had been broken after her mother died and the supernatural world had been revealed to her.

Allison noticed how Sage's eyes had diverted to the comforter in acknowledgement, her brown irises catching sight of how the blonde swallowed hard and returned to twisting the ring that she put on her index finger. There was so much about their friendship that did not make sense: how the new girl managed to befriend the girl that was not new in the slightest, how the hunter had managed to form such a close bond to an altor that had made it her own self-aligned position to protect the supernatural, how the girl had literally stuck like glue to Sage's side even after the blonde had kissed Scott their sophomore year, and, most importantly, how it was even humanly possible for two girls that shined with confidence and control managed to fall apart in the most brutal of ways.

Allison, remembering back to the conversation that she had with Sage when she could not manage to put the xylazine into the bottle, reached until she grabbing her best friend's hand to stop the rapid movement of her rings. "You need to let me help you."

"I don't know what's wrong with me, Allison," Sage whispered, glancing up from her hands to stare at her best friend, the desperation for answers enough for her voice to crack. She needed to know. She just wanted to feel better. She wanted to stop feeling like everyone in the entire world was trying to shove her into a tiny placement on the universe, and she wanted the pain that was settling in her stomach every time she woke up to go away. "All of us keeping running around, chasing our tails and repeating the same conversations and the same steps like the second time is going to be any better than the first. We're losing."

Allison could feel her own emotions wavering, her hand tightening on Sage's as she tried her hardest to give the teenage girl in front of her a smile. "I know."

They didn't say much after that, instead letting the music flow frequently throughout their eardrums. Neither girl even bothered to speak once about the events that had happened with Stiles before Allison entered the room, or all of the problems that their friends were going through as they sat in bed. They didn't speak about what Sage had seen while she was in Eichen House, or what her pack had to push through with finding Katashi's scroll in Kincaid's hand. It was an odd sense of familiarity, back to sophomore year when the two of them would sit in the same bedroom and just listen to music while they studied for a big test that was the next day. It was even more odd that the familiarity was scalding to their minds to think about because things were not as simple as they had been a year ago.

Sage's lips slowly pulled down in a signature frown as she noticed a picture that was barely hanging onto her wall, nearly covered up by another that she had taken with Laura nearly two years. Stiles' lips were pressed messily against her cheek, the blonde scrunching up her nose slightly through the portion of the image she could see. Pictures with her brother were on the wall as well, including the one she had taken from his bedroom before she went through the traumatic state of a pyromaniac teenager, along with dozens filling up the navy blue bulletin board she had bought over the summer. "We fought the entire time in the place, you know?"

"You and Stiles?" Allison asked, turning again at the start of the conversation she had been holding onto the hope of getting ever since she stepped into the doorstep. There was something odd between them, where Allison knew many of Sage's faults because they shared the same ones. They were both effortlessly adamant on the idea of showing strength, and only when the layers were peeled away did the truth finally come out about their thoughts. "You two have always fought, though. Even before you started dating."

"No. It was different this time," Sage dismissed, shaking her head with her eyebrows furrowing as if she were replaying the conversation in her mind as she spoke. The biggest one had revolved around the short and abrupt discussion they had in the hallway right before he had been taken away by Brunski. "It was desperate. It was like we were just filling time by yelling at each other over useless things. We always used to have motive before. We used to care enough about each other to realize that we needed to stop speaking. We never walked away; and, when we were there, we just did kept arguing until I walked away."

Allison didn't know what to say to comfort her best friend. She wasn't entirely sure just what she could say because she didn't understand the complications of the relationship that Stiles and Sage shared. Hell, they had always been Stiles and Sage. They were closer than anything she had ever seen in her life. Even when she was in a relationship with Scott, she didn't fully comprehend the dysfunction connection between the pair. She supposed that was why it had been heartbreaking to everyone around when they heard about the break up between the couple. If two people that loved each other so much that they would sacrifice everything, including their lives, could not find their way back to one another, what hope did any of them have left? Allison couldn't imagine it; she couldn't imagine standing next to Scott, Stiles, Sage, and Lydia a year from now, receiving her diploma, and the two not be holding hands.

"You two are the most confusing couple I have ever met," Allison muttered, her words nearly being drowned out as another artist came in through the headphones. Sage had heard it, though, and finally drew her eyes away from the picture she had been intensely staring at to raise her features. "You always have been. You kissed like a couple before you dated, which nearly took a year to happen. Then, you date and get into a fight because he supposedly cheats on you. You get back together, and then... what? You just stopped loving him? He stopped loving you? We both know that's not true. Scott said you took off the ring he gave you, and even though I get why, you need to accept that the Stiles you know... the Stiles you love, is still out there. The guy that gave you that ring is still madly in love with you. Your weird benchwarmer is still yours, Sage; and, honestly, I'll kill you both before anyone else even has the chance if the two of you don't work things out eventually. You're two sides of the same coin."

Sage could feel her heart lurch in her chest at Allison's reminder of everything that she had been through with Stiles. To think about all of it in the same light seemed impossible when knowing what the future held for them; to think about all the moments, all of the memories, that she had stumbled around the idea of ever loving Stiles until giving in became one of the best things in her life, seemed to bring an involuntary amount of pain. She couldn't help but wonder if it was what Allison felt when she broke up with Scott — if she continued to think about him every single day and every single moment with no release of the stress. She wondered if Allison ever cared to admit to herself that she regretted the decision to letting go of the one person she had loved senselessly enough to give away everything. To wonder those things, though, would be to compare the love Scott and Allison had for each other to the love Stiles and Sage had for each other, and doing that was not a comparison that someone could even begin to stitch together.

Sage blinked, emotionless to the truth. "I'm just trying to think about what's going to happen if we get through this."

"When we get through this," Allison corrected, reiterating her sentence to better the way that her best friend was thinking. The teenage girl glanced over again at the restatement, a flinch of emotion in her lips giving the brunette next to he enough hope that Sage Connelly would be okay. Maybe not now, but eventually. She would survive, and that was enough for Allison to feel relief. "I know that you want all of this to be over, but you've got to push yourself one more time. We aren't going to get through this without you. We're all running around oblivious to what we have to do. We need you, Sage."

The teenage girl glanced over at her best friend. "Not as much as I need you."

Sage wasn't entirely sure if her pack knew just how much she needed them. She was well aware of their surprise when they saw just how much their deaths affected her when she had the hallucinations, and she was aware of just how little they understood that every decision she had ever made since she came back was for the sake of their safety, but she didn't know if they realized how much they held her together. It wasn't just Derek anymore that could see through her as if her bones were made of glass. It wasn't just Stiles that could console her when she feared of the stubborn instability living beneath her lungs. All of them, from Allison all the way to Aiden, had become an attachment to her being. It was a feeling that only an altor would know, and a feeling they prayed would never be ripped away from the sudden amount of emptiness it felt within. She could not lose them. She would not lose them. Sage refused to give herself the chance to let someone she loved slip out of her fingers.

"I'm always here, Sage. Even when you don't need me to be."

Sage knew it, too. "I know."

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When Sage walked into the Argent's apartment later that day, having finally pulled herself out of bed to take a shower and put on a new pair of clothes, she felt the wash of regret surface in her stomach when she had met eyes with Sheriff Stilinski. She thought that confronting other people would help take her mind off the labyrinth of a mind she possessed, but it only made her realize just how many people would leave empty if something happened to Stiles. It wasn't just his ex-girlfriend that would sink into a hole of bitter depression — or, further, should she say. It wasn't just his best friend that would have to cope with being a true alpha while the person that gave him the ability to become so true disappeared without a chance of stopping it. It wasn't just his father that would return to the shallow ends of a bottle in hopes that the stinging in his throat would drown out the burning in his chest. It was people that Stiles had left feeling human, whether they were a supernatural creature or just simply ordinary. It was everyone left standing to fight for the boy that had never believed he had much to fight for.

Instead of just shouldering her off with a nod like she was expecting, Sheriff Stilinski had filled the gap between their bodies by outstretching his arms and pulling the blonde into a hug. Sage hadn't even realized what he was doing until she felt him tighten his hold around her body, the feeling so incredibly strange to her. She hadn't felt the hold of a father in a long time, and to see that being replicated through the actions of someone that wasn't even related to her had her shoulders tensing without a sense of awareness towards the situation. Finally, after a few seconds of discomfort, she relaxed and allowed herself to wrap her arms around Sheriff Stilinski. As she did so, she could see from across his shoulder that Derek Hale and Chris Argent were also watching the interaction happen with eyes that had lost their guard.

Sage noticed the look on Derek's face when she caught his eyes alone, the two of them not having spoken since she was released from the hospital almost three days ago. It was one that she was given frequently and one that never failed to cause a ripple in her body as she realized how far she had strayed from the man. They were not into the simplicity of a hug, never having been compliant with their emotions enough to resort to such an action unless they truly felt it was necessary. What they did have was their looks, and the expression on his face in that very moment was enough for the blonde to see that she was still being protected by the best friend that had never left her side. She knew that he could see the wearing consequences of Eichen House, from her diluted emotion to the bruise she had barely cared to cover. He was worried, even further, about the teenage girl that he had helped raise for six years. He was worried because Sage was revealing a part of herself to people that she had left disclosed in a small box inside of her head, having been building around that box since the moment they walked away from the house fire.

She pulled away from Sheriff Stilinski moments later, the man giving her arm a small squeeze before they were all silently treading into Argent's office with no more word of the interaction between the pair or just how little they had seen of their infamous blonde in the past few days. It was a predisposed fact that the five of them in the room were the most equip to find Stiles when putting all of the pieces together. They were the most pained, as well. Each of them had a story of a life broken beyond the walls of an identity they refused to reach, and each of them had lost something in their lives that they could never get back. Furthermore, they all had developed the intensity of feeling too deeply for certain things, and, as Sage always said, feelings were messy.

Allison had gotten straight to the point, lifting the bag that she had stopped to get from their basement so that it would land on the desk in front of them all. Granted, the desk was already filled with the miscellaneous amounts of weapons that the Argent's, somehow, found a way to legally own. The variety of items, ranging from a simple majority of flashlights all the way to tasers that had her clenching her stomach from the memories, caught her in a trance of momentary panic. Her best friend's words, however, instinctively contradicted that idea when she saw the weary expression that crossed over the blonde's face. "This is everything non-lethal that I could find."

"We'll take all of it," Chris answered, not bothering to acknowledge that some of it may be useless towards the mission at hand. He just pulled the bag over his way and began to set the things into it randomly, no organization plan coming through.

Clearly in as an uncomfortable state of mind as Sage was, Sheriff paused as he watched the family of hunters begin to pack up as if they did it on their days off. "What's the plan here?"

"Our best shot right now is for Derek to try and pick up Stiles' scent at Eichen House, especially if he went through something stressful there," Chris explained, his eyes barely meeting with Sage when he mentioned the institution the blonde had been locked away in only thirty hours prior. Everyone had caught onto it being a subject they had to tread on lightly, even a man that had been locked away in a jail cell the entire time that it happened.

"He did," Sage intervened, her words falling from her mouth stronger than she thought they would be. She looked up from the desk, meeting with Argent's gaze so that he could see just how serious she was set out on letting him know that the amount of stress that he was imagining was nothing compared to what Stiles truly felt. She, herself, could only barely manage to see it. "I'm not going back to that place, and the four of you all standing in the same room looking for the same thing isn't going to get us any closer to finding Stiles."

Chris, allowing the acceptance of the information, turned to look at Sage with awaiting eyes. "Where else has Stiles been showing up?"

"School," Allison said, speaking up and gaining the attention of everyone. "The hospital."

Sage shifted her arms from their place hanging limply at her sides to a crossed posture on her chest, trying to keep herself from overthinking the situation that they were trying to set out as fast as possible. She kept her mind clear for all options to lay in her mind, but that didn't change the fact that she still kept to the words she told Allison earlier that day. They were just repeated the same methods with the hope that it would change the game, not even bothering to consider the fact that the Nogitsune had already registered what their capacity of knowledge was and how much it could be manipulated. Surprisingly, she hadn't been the one to speak up about the realization, though.

Instead, Derek's words emitted from the depth of her mind to the right of her. "Hold on. We've been through this before. He disappeared, we started looking for him, then walked right into a trap at the hospital."

"Same moves, same game," Sage added, trying to ignore the way she moved towards her rings for a sense of support all over again. She was thankful that it wasn't just her noticing the repetitive positions they were all trying to be successful in. "All of our moves are already set out for the Nogitsune to play with. We're just giving him exactly what he wants."

Allison turned to look at Sage, concern striking in her eyes just like it had this morning. "So, what do we do? Wait for him to come to us?"

"We can't. Not if the Oni find him when the sun goes down," Derek protested, shaking his head as he denied the idea of staking out until the Nogitsune finally decided to make the first move. Not only would it put Stiles in danger of the Oni, but it would also put everyone in Beacon Hills in danger. Allowing the Nogitsune to just roam around the town free of mind would only supplement the darker thrill of chaos.

Sheriff, who had been at loss for words towards just how easily the group blended together to immediately settle a problem, felt the need to speak up on one thing he did know. "Scott's working on them right now with Kira."

"That's the problem. We're all trying to outfox the fox," Chris stated, his words providing a much larger impact in the room than he had originally be anticipating. Everyone seemed to thaw out of the trance they were put into while throwing ideas back and forth, coming to the broad awareness that, even with the five of them playing a part in the role of hunting the Nogitsune, they would never be as smart as him. That was enough for the slightest amount of doubt to creep inside of their set plan.

"Listen." Sheriff interrupted the momentary silence to speak up. He could sense the interest that all of the others had upon his interruption, everyone meeting his shielded eyes as they awaited his response. The man couldn't help but pause for a second, noticing the determined and desperate expressions that had filled the features of all four of them, and realized that all of it was because of his son. For that reason alone, he believed that he was forced to fill in the obligation as the only person required to save Stiles. He wasn't going to allow the people in front of him to walk into a battle of a fight they don't want to be a part of. "I'll understand if anyone wants to back out."

Sage stopped turning her rings the moment that Stiles' father said that. She hadn't never been put in the inclined position where she believed she had the option of choosing to stay or go. Of course, she had thought multiple times how much she wished she could, but she never actually thought that anyone would give her the distinctive choice of walking away from it all. She supposed it had to do with the fact that everyone already knew what her answer would be, and that asking Sage to just let Stiles decay inside of his own head was an unspeakable form of an intolerable act. They knew not to ask because the blonde had the recorded problem of helping when she didn't even know how to until the very last moment, just as they knew that there was nothing — not even the idea of death itself — that could stop her from wanting to keep the boy safe.

She frowned, looking at Sheriff Stilinski with an expression that would have given him her answer even if she hadn't decided to speak. "You know I can't."

"Well," Derek began, allowing his eyes to drift over to the blonde next to him for a split second, knowing that she hadn't just made the decision for herself but for him, as well. His hand reached out to grab a hold of the small taser that Allison had accidentally used on Scott before, gripping it tightly in his hand. "I'm not going to be the first wolf to run from a fox."

Argent hummed out, his own doubts disappearing as he picked up an electric rod. "Apparently, I'm holding the lightsaber."

"Dad, you and Derek hit Eichen House. Sage, it's you and the Sheriff at the hospital. I'm going to swing by the school to see if there is anything I can find. When you guys are done, we can all meet up there," Allison decided, splitting up everyone accordingly so that there was no gap in between where they should be and where they weren't.

No one bothered disagreeing with their designated companion, Sage and Sheriff Stilinski sending each other a half smile in acknowledgement. Allison was the first to file out of the room, grabbing her own array of weapons and setting off with a small goodbye to her father. Sheriff and Sage had left next, grabbing a hold of the bag so that they could hoist it down to the Camaro. The only two that had taken a moment of hesitation were Derek and Chris, the werewolf pausing before the hunter as he watched the man pull back a box to reveal two semi-automatic pistols. A bitter taste fell in Derek's mouth as he watched Chris load them, knowing that the promise to keep Stiles safe had been lost when the Nogitsune took back the role of the victor of a teenage boy's body. The worst part of it all was that Derek had the brutal consideration of not stopping Chris if it came down to it because, if it happened, how far gone would Sage be?

"Making sure you have a few lethal options just in case?" Derek asked, watching as Argent shoved the two guns into the back of his jeans to hide.

Chris didn't even take a moment to think about his decision. "I like to be prepared for the worst."

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Walking around the hospital had lacked conversation between Sage and the Sheriff. The two of them had managed to scour as much of the basement and first floor as they could possibly enter, Melissa sparing a small glance at Sage before she returned to a discussion in an attempt to distract herself from the blonde's weary fixture. The last thing that Melissa wanted to do was range into her mother mode and pull the teenage girl off to the side in an aided attempt to comfort her. She knew that there were bigger things going on, and while it hurt her to see it happen, Sage's emotional health would have to be measured out after the cause of it was defeated; to tear the fear away from the fearing proved the only conclusion to helping a dissolving mind. Melissa did not have to be a psychology major to know that the root of Sage's distress was Stiles.

Sage and the Sheriff had moved to the elevator so that they could make their way to the eighth floor, knowing that they still had quite a few to get through and even a few to skip before they could reach the roof. It was where the electrical malfunction had began and the only place where Stiles had the most conflict with the Nogitsune besides Eichen. They had already filed away the places that the Nogitsune hadn't bothered going to, making sure that they did check out the MRI room just in case they happened to miss anything. Now, they had to reach the ICU. It was obvious how uncomfortable Sage was as she stood in the elevator, her weight shifting every few seconds as she impatiently waited for the doors to open. She didn't like being in the place. She didn't want to have to remember why she was in this place.

"I never realized how much you three went through," Sheriff Stilinski began, the interruption of the silence enough for Sage to turn her head to look at him with her eyebrows raised. He caught on that she was silently asking what he meant, and continued. "All of the times I yelled at him. All of the times he showed up to the crime scenes. If I had known what was happening—"

"You would have been in more danger than you already are as the Sheriff of a town with supernatural creatures," Sage finished, making sure that he caught onto the insinuation that she was hinting his way. She was well aware of why Stiles didn't tell his father sooner, just as much as she was aware of why she had been so adamant against the idea of telling Lydia, Jackson, Allison, or any of her other friends what was truly happening beneath their realm of understanding. They would be put in danger, and seeing them live the lives that they had no choice in participating in didn't seem fair in the slightest.

Sheriff Stilinski pursed his lips at the statement. Her words had not deflated the guilt creeping up inside of him, only increased a worry deep within him at the tone she used. It was so lifeless, hard even. He glanced down at the blonde with a worry in his eyes that only a father could show to a child he cared for. "You, all of you, have been in danger so many times before. I just... I don't know how you do it. You're all so strong. You're fearless. Hell, you even manage to keep your grades up."

With those words, Sage ached for the closure of her room all over again. She knew that there were a lot of things Sheriff Stilinski failed to see, parts of the people he was closest with that he hadn't been exposed to, and she knew that he would never be able to survive the understanding that none of them were strong. None of them were fearless. They all strove to be; they strove to be the best examples of a pack that a true alpha would lead. The lines blurred too often between what was good and what was right between those leaderships, though. The teenage girl knew that Sheriff Stilinski would never understand the splitting impact that would always create indifference between herself and Scott, where she acted on the pure idea that no cost of her sanity would measure up to the lives of the people closest to her — and, only the people closest to her. Scott cared about everyone. He allowed himself to be selfless while his pack carried selfish tendencies on their backs like it was second nature.

Sage knew that the Sheriff would never understand the ways in which Stiles and Scott were different, or just how close in comparison her flaws her to his son's. The couple thrived off of power, control, and the understanding of the situation they were about to walk into. They craved the desperation of knowledge, of manipulating a circumstance so that it would fall in their favor. No one understood that they had a desire to be more than just a name, more than just a face with a hanging title that carried grief. Scott was impulsive, willing to run in front of a bullet for a stranger that would never know his name. He would take his integrity to the grave with him, proving that being brave was just as problematic as being good. He had no desire to be anything more than a teenage boy that could walk around without fearing for his and his pack's lives. While they all tried their hardest to show that they didn't lie too far on the spectrum of division, it was obvious that the three best friends had a rigid path of difference splitting them apart.

"We're not the people that you think we are," Sage said, trying to keep her words composed as she shook her head slightly. She was almost disgusted to think about all of the things she had done, all of the things they had all done, that would never be known to the people that cared about them most. Her head had turned back to the metal doors at that point, ignoring the lump that was slowly forming in her throat as she clenched her jaw tightly together. "We aren't all good."

Sheriff Stilinski could tell that she was indirectly pointing the bold arrow towards herself, and immediately shifted his entire body so that he was turning in her direction, pressing the emergency stop button on the elevator while doing so. "No one is all good, and no is all bad, Sage. There's got to be a point in our lives where we think of ourselves as one more than the other, or else we'd die of the guilt."

"I don't want to be bad," Sage protested, swallowing hard as she turned to look at him. The man had never shown himself to be the most philosophical unless he was with people that showed him the philosophy of living, and the blonde in front of him was one of those people. He could see that her eyes were impulsively watering, creating a bright green within her irises that had him sick to his stomach. The sheriff thought about all of the times that his son had seen that expression cross over his ex-girlfriend's face, and the amount of times that that Stiles had known what to do to help. "I don't want to end up like Jennifer. I don't want to end up like Peter. I don't... I can't become that person."

For the second time that day, Sheriff Stilinski had pulled the blonde into his arms; and, for the second time that day, Sage felt the tug in her stomach that had her aching for her father. She wanted her dad. She wanted her brother. She wanted her mom — and, while she knew that she would never be given the luxury of those things ever again, not truly, she knew that there were people in the world that were willing to help her as a surrogate. She knew that Sheriff Stilinski would always be there for her, his tight grip on her shoulders enough evidence to support that. She knew that Chris Argent would always be there for her, the glances of worry that he sent her way as if she were his own daughter enough for her to grasp that he cared.

Sage knew that she had Derek, more of a brother than a best friend. He was the one that had always been there, holding her hand and brushing her off when she fell. She knew that she had Scott, the teenage boy becoming the closest thing she had managed to find in a friend — in a brother. She knew that she had Melissa, too. The woman had taken to fitting the role of a mom for Sage, one that she knew Mallory would never be able to achieve. She even had Natalie, Lydia's mother showing support when it was needed. There were people there, a family that she had created without even realizing how much they meant until they were holding onto her as she tried not to stumble.

The next words Sheriff Stilinski said tipped on the edge of a lie. "You are not a bad person, Sage, and you never will be."

"I'm worried that I'm going to mess everything up," Sage stressed out of her lips, twisting her rings once again unknowing to the marks that were beginning to show up on the worn areas. "I'm worried that I'm stuck like this forever, unable to do anything while people are dying all around me. I'm worried that I'm just going to be sitting there while everyone I love most is out sacrificing their lives... and, I don't know how to help anymore. I don't know if I can."

"You sounded a bit like your dad there," Sheriff admitted. The statement had Sage lifting her head to look at the man in surprise, rarely having heard anything about Hal from Stiles' father in the time that she had come home. The man in front of her seemed to realize the same thing. "We went to high school together. He was working for an internship at this hospital when I was training to be a deputy. First day, I saw him and he said the same words— didn't think he was fit to help anyone like he wanted to. I told him to shove it and fix my dislocated shoulder before I hit him with a wheelchair."

Sage managed to crack a smile, the image surfacing in her mind as she thought about the conversation happening between her father and the Sheriff. Stiles' father had caught sight of the small gesture of happiness, a small ounce of relief falling in his chest. He had never been good with crying, never having to raise a daughter that was as complex as Sage. To have the smallest of knowledge that he made her feel better comforted him, and he allowed himself to speak once more in hopes that it would not reverse the affect. "I know you miss him. Everyone does, but he would have been proud of the woman you've become. I know that I am."

His words had left a bigger impact that he might have realized in that moment, the smile slowly dripping off Sage's face. It wasn't out of misery, but out of understanding. She was only seventeen, but she had been through so much that she questioned whether or not her mind was a labyrinth to an older age. There were so many events, so many struggles, that she had been forced to overcome ever since she turned eleven; and, she hadn't acknowledged the fact that people didn't think of her as a teenage girl anymore. To classify her as something of that sort would be to label her down to a normal life, and she was living an existence that was anything but normal. Anything but human, and she wasn't completely positive that while going through those things and growing up, she turned into someone worth being proud of. If anything, she turned into someone worth being sorry for.

Even then, it brought a comfort in her chest to hear that Sheriff Stilinski honestly believed her father would have been proud of the person she was today. It was nostalgic to think about the fact that all of the memories she had with the man were subjected down to small hours, minutes, and days when she was only a kid. There was the desperation that she felt every day to know him, or to have another conversation with him, to see the characteristics and qualities that they shared with one another. She was living off other people's words for as long as she could remember, just as she had with Luke and Mallory. While they were her family, and while she spent ten years of her life with them, they were nothing but blurred memories and names branded on her list of the lost. They would always be her family, her only blood relation, but Sage knew that she had created another one that was just as strong as the one she had before — if not, stronger.

Before Sage could thank the man to her right for his words, Sheriff's phone was going off.

"What is that?" Sage asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she looked at the man in confusion. She watched him unlock his phone, shifting through his apps until he found the one that he was looking for with nimble fingers. She had assumed it would be Argent or Derek texting him with an update on Eichen House, but was wrong when she noticed that he was nowhere near his messages and, instead, was on a security app that she had never seen before.

Sheriff Stilinski tried not to show his growing panic. "Someone's breaking into my house. After Stiles started sleepwalking, I had some security precautions put in. Motion sensors. Cameras."

The two of them watched as the screen of his phone slowly loaded, almost humorously given how both of them had felt their hearts start racing even further upon the seriousness of the situation. When it had finally dissolved into a clear picture, and all of the pixels were setting into a perfect image through the cameras, neither felt the urge to speak when they saw what Sheriff Stilinski's phone had focused on. It was a room, one that didn't need to be acknowledged who's given the amount of time Sage had spent in it over the last year, and it was a boy. From their view of the screen, Stiles was sitting on his bed, his eyes never once leaving the direction of the camera. No expression crossed his face as he just stayed there, positioned as though he was permanently stuck creating pain for the people watching.

Sheriff Stilinski heard the deep inhale next to him, daring to tear his eyes away from the image of his son to look over at the blonde. What he saw surprised him, especially since he had been so lost for words when she began crying over his words about strength, yet there was no solidifying glimmer in her green irises when she saw Stiles. There was nothing but rage, and it was so much of it that her jaw was clenching tightly underneath her skin. It was so much of it that Sheriff Stilinski had slowly dropped his phone from his side, barely catching the act of his son waving with a thrilling frequency. It was so much of it that the man next to her questioned just how much of her mind was ruled in hatred, and how much of it she left to be ruled with love —because, just with that very action, he was beginning to understand why Sage feared the idea of being bad so much. At times, she wanted to be, and, at times, she was.

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"What is all of this?"

The original plan to meet up at the school had been quickly dismissed the moment that Sage texted the others to let them know what happened with the security monitor at the Stilinski household. Given the situation, it was clear that Derek and Argent were relieved to see walls that weren't inside of Eichen House. It seemed no matter the person, the place still managed to bring out the worst in people. The only evident piece that could support that was the way Derek kept glancing over at her, almost as though he wanted to tell her something but couldn't with the numbers of people around them. Because of that, they kept to the bigger problem.

When they got to the house, they entered a room that was absent of the person they were trying to find. The only thing that it did hold was jabs at the past, Sage's eyes roaming around the room to try and find any evidence that may have been left behind for them to find. The others did the same, spreading out slightly, bumping shoulders every few seconds. Just when they were nearing the end of giving up, just like Sage and Sheriff Stilinski had begun to do while in the hospital, the blonde caught sight of something sitting on Stiles' desk that looked different. Wrong, even. The last time she saw the chess board in front of her, the sticky notes were the guide into helping Sheriff Stilinski understand the supernatural world. It was her idea, and having been there to see the way Stiles tried to explain everything through the use of the pieces and the color-coding, she knew that something had changed. The titles were different, the moves were different, everything was different.

"Guys," Sage muttered, her words barely carrying enough to attract their attention. She didn't turn her eyes away from the board, rather just continue to run through each of the pieces to try and figure out what had changed. The most obvious was that three more black pawns had been added, and Isaac, Ethan, and Aiden were written on them in Stiles' sloppy handwriting. Derek, who had previously been a black knight, was changed to the black king; even her own piece and placement had been changed. Where Stiles had once designated her as the white queen, she was now a white knight and only a single move away from sending Derek to checkmate.

Argent, who had been the one to ask the beginning question, walked over to see what she was investing so much time in figuring out. He inspected the chess board and the notes on the pieces, then followed that closely with a confused frown. "What do these sticky notes mean?"

"It's what Stiles used to try and explain to me about all of..." Sheriff Stilinski paused, looking around the room to see just how haphazard a pairing the four of them were. A former alpha was in the room, wearing blue eyes that would usually be the first warning to the former hunters that the Argent's were. Two catastrophic labels that the former altor in the room fit into unwillingly. Each of them, everyone standing in the room, had lost a part of their supernatural life. Sheriff Stilinski did not want to wonder whether or not he would join them at some point, not giving himself the time to think about the possible death of his son. "... you."

"Well, maybe it's a message from Stiles," Allison opted, turning to look in between Sage and Sheriff. Not only were the two of them there when the chess board was used, but by the look that the the teenage girl to her right had, it was obvious that she was coming up with dozens of possible reasons why exactly the board was left as a clue to them. She noticed her faulty sentence and quickly corrected it. "The real Stiles."

Derek had a bigger concern that who had actually sent the message, his eyes wandering around the board, moving through friends and pack members without a second glance. Only when he caught sight of his own name, right behind a piece with a sticky note of the person he was closest to, did he stop. "Is there any reason why my name is on the king?"

"Your heavily guarded," Sheriff explained. He wasn't the only one who had noticed the fact that Sage's piece was one move from checkmating Derek's, everyone aside from Derek following the silent agreement that there was something that the Nogitsune was planning on happening that involved the two. "But, the alarming detail is that you're one move from being checkmate by Sage's white knight."

Every trait that Argent had developed to warn him of a threat was going off, the man shaking his head as he took a step away from the desk. "It's not a message from Stiles. It's a threat from the Nogitsune."

"He's at the loft. That's what he's trying to tell us," Allison said, building up her own theories considering the person that usually always supplied them with reason was completely silent as she continued to look at the board. With the usage of Sage and Derek both, that was the only conclusion she could come up with. Unless Sage was going to do something to jeopardize Derek's life, the brunette didn't see how the placements could make any more sense.

Argent glanced over at his daughter before nodding in agreement. "And, he wants us to come there."

"Night's falling," Derek commented in reminder of the Oni, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at the others in the room. It seemed everyone, including him, was trying their hardest to ignore the way that Sage was staring at the game of chess. She had resorted to resting her hands on the sides of the desk, looking like she was highly invested in picking her next move against a challenging opponent.

"This couldn't have sounded like any more of a trap."

Stilinski shook his head very quickly at the thought of Argent's words being true, not believing that the Nogitsune had enough understanding of the game to set a trap that adequately. "No. I don't think it is."

"I think you might be slightly biased, Sheriff," Argent protested, looking at the man with hesitation. It was obvious that any person with a strong enough connection to Stiles was struggling to cope with the information in their own way, from the sheriff all the way to Scott. It was expected for their opinions to be biased, to be lacking judgement based on the minimal amount of care they had towards anything but saving the person the loved.

"Then, listen to me." For the second time in five minutes, all four pairs of eyes moved to look at Sage. She had finally pulled herself out of the trance she was living in, although her grip had tightened on the sides of Stiles' desk as she spoke. However, no matter how strong her voice may have carried, the eye contact was lost as she kept herself facing down at the chess board. "It doesn't matter if it's Stiles or the Nogitsune; because, if it's Stiles, then he's still fighting with the Nogitsune enough to send us a message on what the next plan is. He's still trying to help us. If it's the Nogitsune, then he wants something. He gets no profit if we don't come, but neither do we. We've been running around this entire town all day trying to find anything that could help us save Stiles. Here it is. So, we take the chance or we keep chasing possibilities."

When Sage finished speaking, the silence in the room was deafening as ever. People had grown so used to the quiet remarks from her in the last few weeks that they had forgotten just how much knowledge she had locked away behind her tongue; what she said was true. Whether they were sending themselves into a trap or not, Stiles would be there. It may not be him in the literal language, but it was still his body. It was still a trace back to their biggest weapon and their biggest villain tied together, fighting one another for survival in a single being. They were given the chance, and the person who sought out to make sure they got it should have been mattering less and less the longer they stood waiting for the sun to go down.

"She's right," Sheriff said, his words slow as he continued to process the words that she had said to their full extent. He blinked a few times to ready himself to actually speak again. "We're dealing with someone who lacks motive — no rhyme, no reason. Right?"

Argent turned away from the blonde next to him to look back at the sheriff. "Meaning what?"

"Our enemy is not a killer. It's a trickster. The killing is just a byproduct."

"If you're trying to say it won't kill us, I'm not feeling too confident about that," Derek retorted, glancing back at his chess piece. It was obvious that he felt a growing worry for his own personal state, given how the Nogitsune has shown no mercy against anyone in the last few circumstances. He had effortlessly managed to electrocute Isaac without complete knowledge of whether or not his plan would fall to that degree, he had managed to send deputies on a chase that only led to the death of their own, he had managed to weasel his way into the minds of the people Stiles' was closest to and manipulate them in ways that hit torturous. To say Derek didn't fear for his own life would be idiotic.

Nonetheless, Sheriff Stilinski was adamant on believing that the Nogitsune was thriving towards a different goal, and Sage just watched as the man worked all of the gears in his head. It was almost comical to see the way he had started out in Argent's office earlier, unknowing to anything besides Scott's whereabouts, now moving onto an equal standard with the others that had been dealing with everything much longer. "It won't. It wants irony. It wants to play a trick. It wants a joke. All we need to do is come up with a new punchline."

"The sun is setting, Sheriff. What do you have in mind?"

☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

The quiet in the Camaro was beginning to seem violent, of some sort. Maybe it was because the Sheriff had decided to go with Derek and Argent, and that left two people in the same situation as this morning where neither teenage girl knew how to begin the conversation that always seemed to hang heavily over their heads. Maybe it was because Allison had been right when she said that they needed Sage, and that the revelation of that only seemed to further scald the blonde into realizing how absent she had been to her friends recently. Maybe it was because there was a thickness in the air, enough to leave both girls inhaling deeply every couple of seconds. It felt like they were walking into something that was going to go wrong, a trap that was bound to leave someone in a much worse state than they were minutes before. Maybe it was because Sage and Allison had laughed so many times in the black Camaro, had smiled and squealed with Lydia on so many light-hearted occasions, that to sit in stillness of language started to feel foreign.

"I'm scared," Sage finally admitted, her grip tightening on the steering wheel as they turned down the street that led them to the loft. She said nothing else, her lips pursing tightly together afterwards to make sure that her intent of sticking with her simple statement was evident.

Allison hadn't even needed to turn to look over at Sage, knowing very well that the two words her best friend just said meant much more than any stranger would ever know. To admit that she was scared, and to truly accept the fact that she was ruling herself in fear instead of adrenaline, meant that she had hit the point where she reflected all of the possible outcomes to the finale of the evil they were facing. She had finally reached the ending solution that she had been searching for even before they saw the chess board in Stiles' room. The most gruesome of it all wasn't the fact that Allison knew exactly what her best friend was thinking, nor the fact that those thoughts carried an obliteration of identities.

The most gruesome part of it all was that Allison felt the exact same fear. "So am I."

☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

THREE EPISODES LEFT. I'm also plenty aware of the fact that this chapter was not the best, and have come to the understanding that my off-script chapters are a lot more efficient than when I actually have to follow the show's dialogue. When I realized this, I wanted to make sure that I added two of my own scenes and changed up a bit of the dialogue in the scene between Sage and Sheriff so that it didn't sound too close in relation to the original scene between Allison and Sheriff. I was having trouble figuring out how to split them accordingly, especially since I have so much love for that scene between Allison and Sheriff and felt that I was doing an injustice by replacing it. Because of that, I made sure to add the little scene at the very end between Sage and Allison where they finally admit their fears, if only in the smallest of ways that they know how.

But, evidently, I don't have a heart after the conversation with Allison. I wanted to make sure that she got a scene that really summed up the entire relationship and the rough patches that she's had with Sage before her inevitable end. There is just so much strength of development between their friendship that to try and epitomize that into 3,000 words didn't seem like enough justice to either of them. This is why I'm lead to believe that the final scene between the best friends will take forever and be longer than life given how much detail I'm going to put in to giving Allison Argent a justified existence and show the impact that she has created in Sage's life. There is also another person that Sage will lose, and you will more than likely see his reappearance in the next chapter or two.

We're nearing the end of Still, and it's officially been an entire year that you guys have stuck true to this book. I know that people have given up and turned this into an unfinished book that they will probably never finish, but for those of you that had been through the ups, downs, sideways, and overall reverses of Sage's character, I appreciate everything. I do, from every comment and every vote that you have ever given me. I can not express the amount of strength you have given me to put my heart and soul into these most recent chapters, and to literally bleed a part of my life story into this character that means so much to me. I know a lot of people just see her as a character, and that's perfectly fine, but for those of you that have the ability to connect as deeply to her emotions as I do, just remember that these words are coming from the placement of someone that has seen the darkest of depression and has overcome it. There is so much hope left in this world, and to even make a single person aware of what a mental illness is and the struggles a person faces —supernatural or not — is all I strive to do with my writing. You guys are my hope, and I thank you endlessly for giving me that to hold onto.

So, now I ask: what is your favorite thing about Sage Connelly and her story?